How to identify Psilocybe Species and Panaeolus. (Illus.) - Mushroom Hunting and Identification

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mjshroomer
Sage

Registered: 07/21/99
Posts: 13,774
Loc: gone with my shrooms

How to identify Psilocybe Species and Panaeolus. (Illus.)

1
#1466732 - 04/17/03 09:14 AM (21 years, 4 days ago)

The genus Psilocybe is quite large, consisting of over 246 known species.
More than 114 of these Psilocybe species are entheogenic. That is, they contain the alkaloids psilocine and/or psilocybine and related tryptamine compounds.

Psilocybe species have a wide variety of habitats which include: dung, manured soil, sandy soil, pastures, meadows, lawns, woods, among decayed twigs and leaves, spaghnum moss, woodchips and bark mulch.

Psilocybe species have certain characteristics common throughout the genus. These include: a conic to bell shaped cap, usually with a nipple or umbo at the top (see illustration below of various species with conical or cone-shaped caps).

The margins of the caps are often incurved when young. Some caps become convex and flat with age, others become wavy.

The caps are viscid when moist and the margin is translucent-striate (meaning that the lines of the gill plates are visable on the caps when moist). Psilocybe species have a viscid pellicle (a film or membrane which can easily be separated from the cap).

Colors of the caps may range from a dark olive brown or chestnut rusty color when fresh to pale yellow when dried. The caps are hygrophanous, meaning that they change color as they dry. A slight bluing may occur along the outer edges of the caps when damaged. In some species this bluing is very intense. The color of the gills may range from cinnamon
brown to dark chocolate or purple brown. The color of the spores are also chocolate to purple brown. The stems are hollow with a fine pith.

Some species such as Psilocybe semilanceata (the "liberty cap") can be wrapped around the finger like a piece of string. Certain varieties (psilocybe cubensis and/or Psilocybe subcubensis, Psilocybe fimetaria and Psilocybe stuntzii) usually have a dark chocolate-purple ring around the top of the stem where the mushroom cap has detached itself from the stem. The purple color of the ring on the stems of some Psilocybe species is due to spores falling on the stem after the cap of the mushrooms has opened. The color of the stems may range from a pallid yellow or yellow-brown to olive brown while other species have pure white stems.

Bluing on the white stemmed varieties is usually very intense. In some regions, some species occur throughout the year depending on their locations and and climatic environments.

There are, of course, certain chemical applications used to speed up the bluing reaction which occurs in psilocybian mushrooms. One method involves "metol", a chemical used in photographic developing. "Metol" can be legally purchased from any camera and photographic supply outlet.

Mix 1 part Metol with 20 parts water. Place the stem of the suspected mushroom in a "metol" solution and wait for approximately 1/2 hour. If the solution turns blue, you have actually collected a mushroom containing psilocybin.

In the illustration posted directly below are several species of psilocybian mushrooms, the first two are the mushroom from ergot from which LSD is made from. Then we also show a Pluteus and A Gymnopilus species and several Psilocybe species. Notice the variations of these mushrooms. Each is a separate speci9es from the other, yet they have trhe same characteristics of the genera in each one.

Now about Panaeolus and Copelandia species.

If the sporeprint is jet black, then the mushroom belongs to one of the following genera: Panaeolus and/or Copelandia species.

These are two families which have mushrooms found to contain the alkaloids known as psilocine and/or psilocybine.

Coprinus (shaggy Mane) and/or Anellaria also have jet black sporeprints but are not hallucinogeic.
Both Panaeolus and Copelandia mushrooms can be collected in the tropics and subtropics of both hemispheres and are found in the manure of four-legged ruminants.

mj

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