Lanmaoa asiatica

Biochemistry and psychoactivity

The bluing reaction observed when the flesh is bruised or cut is strictly due to a pigment being enzymatically oxidized and is unrelated to the bluing reaction observed in psilocybin-containing mushrooms (caused by an oxidized dimer of psilocin), as L. asiatica has not been shown to produce psilocybin or psilocin.

Lanmaoa asiatica produces Lilliputian hallucinations, in which a person sees numerous extremely small yet fully autonomous people in their environment. Reports of Lilliputian hallucinations across several Asian countries had previously been unexplained for many years. In one Yunnan hospital, doctors treat hundreds of such cases a year that often manifest as visions of tiny elves going under doors, climbing the furniture, and scaling walls.

Lanmaoa asiatica is considered a choice wild edible in China and is rich in umami flavor compounds. It is safe to eat when properly cooked. "At a mushroom hot pot restaurant there, the server set a timer for 15 minutes and warned us, 'Don't eat it until the timer goes off or you might see little people,'" says Colin Domnauer, a PhD student who studies L. asiatica. Yunnanese restaurants have developed a set of safety standards (including mandatory electronic cooking timers and a ban on consuming alcoholic drinks) to minimize poisoning risk, with some establishments going further to make sure to always save samples of the day's mushrooms for genetic analysis should a poisoning outbreak occur. The local government also sends public alerts during mushroom season to warn about the potential of poisonings. Nevertheless, poisonings remain common and treatment thereof is a specialty of local hospitals.

Lilliputian hallucinations have been documented as arising from many different disease states, including alcohol withdrawal, macular degeneration, and Charles Bonnet syndrome, among many others. However, no disease can induce Lilliputian hallucinations as reliably as raw Lanmaoa asiatica. The hallucinations with Lanmaoa asiatica have a peculiar time course, with an onset of 12 to 24 hours after the meal and a duration of 1 to 7 days or in some cases weeks. The little people with Lanmaoa asiatica are said to be about 2 cm or 10 to 30 cm tall and anchored in one's environment, including being stable, realistically embedded in the environment, three-dimensional, rendered in fine detail, and generally obey the laws of physics. One example is little people submerging themselves in a soup, resurfacing, and then being lifted out in a spoon. Nothing else is said to be known that produces anchored Lilliputian hallucinations like Lanmaoa asiatica. Due to the delayed onset, it has been hypothesized that the active constituent might be a prodrug or that it might act by altering the gut somehow. People who are hallucinating on Lanmaoa asiatica are usually aware that they are quite intoxicated. In addition to the Lilliputian hallucinations, Lanmaoa asiatica can produce gastrointestinal symptoms and alarmingly, occasional states of delirium. People appear to recover fully from the intoxication, and no deaths have been reported.

Chemical and genomic analyses indicate that L. asiatica does not contain the known hallucinogenic alkaloids psilocybin and muscimol, suggesting that an unknown hallucinogenic compound or mixture of compounds is involved. Chemical analysis of L. asiatica has identified numerous compounds with possible pharmacological activity, but as of yet, none are linked to the effects.

Domnauer and colleagues are working on identifying the active constituents of Lanmaoa asiatica as of 2025 and 2026. The work is said to be challenging as there are hundreds of compounds in the mushroom. In July 2026, Domnauer shared that it was still unclear how far they were from the discovery. He has stated that he thinks the active compound may be an unusual and rather large protein. In addition, Domnauer has suggested that the active compound might not even fully enter the brain and may work via the gut or brainstem somehow. According to Domnauer, the effects and time course of the mushrooms are highly peculiar, so the chemistry might be too. In attempting to identify the active constituents, Domnauer is taking advantage of the fact that the active substance is thermolabile by comparing the chemistry of cooked and uncooked tissue extracts. The researchers have been narrowing down the compounds by testing various fungal tissue extracts in mice and then observing if any behavioral changes occur. Progress is slow as the mushroom grows in symbiosis with the roots of certain conifer species, and unlike psilocybin-containing mushrooms, is unable to be cultured in a laboratory and must instead be gathered wild. Domnauer and colleagues have narrowed the possible active substances list to a small handful of candidates. The active chemicals are said to be quite polar and easily extracted into distilled water. However, the team needs more mushroom tissue samples in order to fully characterize these polar compounds and so will need to travel to China again. In addition, it is unclear whether the compounds causing the bizarre behavioral changes in mice are the same ones causing the Lilliputian hallucinations in humans.

Despite being tempted to dose himself, Domnauer has not done so and as a result has not experienced the characteristic Lilliputian syndrome. He cites several concerns regarding the unknown minimum effective dose, the potential for delirium and dehydration (due to gastrointestinal upset), and the long duration of action. However, he has stated that he enjoys cooking and eating this species.

History

Lanmaoa asiatica and the syndrome it induces may have been described as early as the third century by a Daoist in China. Bolete mushrooms producing Lilliputian hallucinations were observed and described in Papua New Guinea from the 1930s to the 1960s. The phenomenon of undercooked Chinese boletes causing Lilliputian hallucinations was subsequently brought to North American attention by David Arora and others in the 1990s. Domnauer and colleagues identified the famous Chinese hallucinogenic species as L. asiatica and described these results in 2025. They also found L. asiatica alongside reports of Lilliputian hallucinations in the Philippines and described these findings as well.

Society and culture

Notable cases

In 2023, L. asiatica received international media attention after U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was reported to have eaten a dinner that contained the fungus during an official visit to China. Yellen later stated that the mushrooms in the dinner were thoroughly cooked, and that she experienced no adverse effects.