Ergot, a fungus that has been a toxin, a medicine and the recreational drug, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) has been with us for a long time.

A recently discovered fossil, perfectly preserved in amber in Myamar, is the earliest grass specimen ever discovered. The 100 million year old grass is topped with a fungus very similar to ergot. Suggesting that the fungus and the grass, which now forms a staple of the human diet, evolved together.

The other important part of the discovery, is the era in which the grass grew. At the time, 100 million years ago, the Earth was in the heart of the Cretaceous period. This was still, very much, the time of the dinosaurs but is also the time when the first small mammals began to evolve.

This suggests that herbivorous dinosaurs likely ate the fungus too. If the animals reacted to it in the same way other species do it could mean symptoms ranging from from hallucinations to delirium, gangrene, convulsions or the staggers.

The initial findings from the discovery have been published in a paper by researchers from the USDA Agricultural Research Service, Oregon State University (OSU) and Germany in the journal Palaeodiversity.

“It seems like ergot has been involved with animals and humans almost forever, and now we know that this fungus literally dates back to the earliest evolution of grasses,” said George Poinar, Jr., an internationally recognized expert on the life forms found in amber and a faculty member in the OSU College of Science in a statement.

Most grains consumed by human originally evolved from these early grasses and ergot has played a roll in human history, long before the discovery of LSD.

Ergotism, a disease comprised of a wide variety of conditions, led to the loss of life and limb in parts of Europe for many hundreds of years. The immune system suppressing qualities of ergot may have contributed to the black death. In many cases, during darker parts of human history, things diagnosed as mental illness, witchcraft and demonic possession may have actually been cases of ergot poisoning. Ergotism is thought to have been involved in the most famous witching of all, as a possible cause of the hysteria and hallucinations which led to the Salem witchcraft trials.

The Myamar discovery shows that ergot may have played a larger role in history than anyone has yet guessed.

“This is an important discovery that helps us understand the timeline of grass development, which now forms the basis of the human food supply in such crops as corn, rice or wheat. But it also shows that this parasitic fungus may have been around almost as long as the grasses themselves, as both a toxin and natural hallucinogen,” said Poinar.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that it would have been eaten by sauropod dinosaurs, although we can’t know what exact effect it had on them,” he added

The particular fungus in this specimen Palaeoclaviceps parasiticus is now extinct but is very similar to what we now know as ergot.

To date, more than 1,000 compounds have been derived or extracted from ergot including medicines and poisons.