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 megaman3
Stranger
Registered: 06/07/02
Posts: 274
Last seen: 18 years, 5 months
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 Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps! 
#1807697 - 08/12/03 10:00 PM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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My friend was all excited to hear that liberty caps could very possibly grow in his region, but after looking at the many forms of the mushroom on mushroomjohn.com he is scared to go look for them. Each picture looks like a totally different mushroom, with the cap height, color, and nipple being extremely variable. My friend had read that semilanceata is one of the easiest for beginners to identify, but all these different cap shapes scare him and make him doubt that statement.
mjshroomer, if you're reading this, could you please tell me how you identified all those seemingly different mushrooms as semilanceata. They don't seem to have much in common! Some of the mushroom caps shown on your site for semilanceata don't have an obvious nipple, which I thought was a classic trait of the species. Some look convex, others campanulate, others conical, some striate and others not so much... Another thing that complicates identification is how much the cap color changes when the mushroom gets older, and the fact that spore prints are hard to come by with this species.
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 Ego Death
Justadropofwaterinanendlesssea
Registered: 04/27/03
Posts: 10,447
Loc: The War Machine
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Re: Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps! [Re: megaman3]
#1808366 - 08/13/03 03:58 AM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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I feel your pain bro.
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megaman3
Stranger
Registered: 06/07/02
Posts: 274
Last seen: 18 years, 5 months
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Re: Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps! [Re: Ego Death]
#1808450 - 08/13/03 05:51 AM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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Yeah dano. My friend and I kept seeing pics online and in books identified as semilanceata, and we always scratched our heads and tried to see how each matched the description of the species. Then when we thought we had it figured out and we could see what they all had in common, we decided to go look at mycoporn on mushroomjohn.com and were again disappointed because there were now some convex caps with no visible nipples that mjshroomer (who knows a hell of a lot more about mushrooms than we ever will) listed as semilanceata.
Here are the ones that confused us on mj's site:
http://www.mushroomjohn.com/species/psemi2.jpg - no nipple
http://www.mushroomjohn.com/species/psemi5.jpg - cap not twice as high as it is wide, and it's pretty expanded, which I thought didn't happen in semilanceata
http://www.mushroomjohn.com/species/psemi13.jpg - caps with no acute nipple, and they look convex
http://www.mushroomjohn.com/species/psemi16.jpg - again with the convex caps!
http://www.mushroomjohn.com/species/psemi20.jpg - well now it's campanulate but at least the nipple is clearly visible
http://www.mushroomjohn.com/species/psemi41.jpg - what's with the discoloration at the top instead of a nipple?
http://www.mushroomjohn.com/species/psemi22.jpg - the worst offender of all - no nipple, growing in a thick cluster, white caps, and convex caps.
So then with all these different shapes and colors, how can you be absolutely sure, without a shadow of a doubt, that what you picked is a semilanceata and not another small grassland mushroom?
Thanks.
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st0nedphucker
Rogue State
Registered: 04/17/03
Posts: 1,047
Loc: Wales (yes it is a countr...
Last seen: 16 years, 4 months
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Re: Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps! [Re: megaman3]
#1808482 - 08/13/03 06:16 AM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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Liberty caps are easy to identify, you need to find a specimen to simply familiarise yourself with them and then you'll be more confident about your identifications. Indentification is paramount but I think your being a little to critical, like us mushrooms (of the same species) vary in shape, size and colour.
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The punishment which the wise suffer, who refuse to take part in government, is to live under the government of worse men.
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thegoone
ufo spotter
Registered: 08/12/03
Posts: 38
Loc: dublin
Last seen: 21 years, 3 months
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Re: Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps! [Re: st0nedphucker]
#1808565 - 08/13/03 07:57 AM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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yeh i agree
i live in ireland so theyre really the only ones i need to be able to identify
once you go pickin with someone once ,you just know, if your interested
and besides there are loads of them if your lookin in the right place
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do at least sixty
but its only my first time
oh yeah do at least eighty
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Remy
Bitches Brew
Registered: 06/04/02
Posts: 1,343
Loc: Atlanta, GA
Last seen: 13 years, 28 days
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Re: Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps! [Re: megaman3]
#1808861 - 08/13/03 10:07 AM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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Do not be discouraged! Just because pictures of different collections look different, doesn't mean you should give up hope. Try reading the descriptions of liberty caps. You seem to have a general idea of the macroscopic features, but you still need some work. Just because a species has certain features that are helpful in identifying it, does not mean that every specimen will look the same. Mushrooms of the same species can come in a million different shapes and sizes, no two are alike. I suggest you get off your computer and actually try hunting, you'll know when you find them, even though they'll probably look different than any of the ones in the pictures. Anyways, good luck!
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megaman3
Stranger
Registered: 06/07/02
Posts: 274
Last seen: 18 years, 5 months
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Re: Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps! *DELETED* [Re: Remy]
#1810033 - 08/13/03 03:29 PM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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Post deleted by megaman3
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aminitaman
FUK THAGOVERNMENT,IMSMOKIN' BLUNTSAND LOVIN' IT
Registered: 07/26/03
Posts: 253
Loc: Tha BlueGrass State,Kentu...
Last seen: 21 years, 2 months
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Re: Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps! [Re: megaman3]
#1810250 - 08/13/03 04:21 PM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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Ha,I know what all yall are sayin,same problem here,especially on the blue foot psilocyb's,PEACE!
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IF IN DOUBT,PLEASE THROW'EM OUT!
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fa'shizzle dizzle
its tha big parafenizzle
with tha big mushroomizzle
ya gotta know its off tha hizzle
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megaman3
Stranger
Registered: 06/07/02
Posts: 274
Last seen: 18 years, 5 months
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Re: Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps! [Re: aminitaman]
#1810306 - 08/13/03 04:29 PM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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I have been searching the Web for libcap images, and on one site it said that they smell like radishes. Is this true?
Also, most of the libcaps I found online are instantly recognizable to me as the classic witch's hat shape. I would still like to know how mjshroomer decided that the ones on his site are semis.
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mjshroomer
Sage
Registered: 07/21/99
Posts: 13,774
Loc: gone with my shrooms
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Re: Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps! [Re: aminitaman]
#1810443 - 08/13/03 04:54 PM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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Everyone of those descriptions of the liberty caps are correct. In fact those are general descriptions belonging to the genera Psilocybe.
There are three species in the fields in PNW of the USA and in European P. s0emilanceata which all are collected together generally as one species (Psilocybe semilanceata, the liberty cap or liberty bell). Those species are P. semilanceata, P. strictipes and P. sierrae (=P. subfimetaria).
In the past I have posted in vitro grown photographs of both P. caerulescens and P. cubensis with upturned wavy caps which are macrocsopically identical to the wavy caps found in P. cyanescens. ANd I have posted baby cubensis with very protroused nipples similar to those found on a liberty cap.
In America, the liberty caps do not appear until the fall months after the beginning of the rainy season, USually late August to Septemebr. While a few small collections are sometimes found in later july-August, etc, those are small as five to ten or twnety shrooms and that is usually it in the PNW. In England and Parts of europe they can be found commonly on lawns in public places as well as fields, meadows and pasturelands. Their PNW season can extend from Late August to January if their is no freeze, although smaller amuonts can be collected in those late months. AND in a good field a picker can pick between 1000 to 3000 or more shrooms if one were to count them. I know because I have been in such fields in Oregon between Eugene and Florence.
They have in the past appearred on a few lawns in the late 1970's in both southcenter and in the Seattle Arboretum in a fertilized lawn, but their appearances in lawns int he PNW is extremely rare. They have also been over the years reported to grow in Golf courses along the Oregon Coast. I was once whacked in the leg by a flying gold ball so I really do not recommend someone prowl around on a golf range and if you read the news clippings in my Grpaevine section you can read of them being collectred in public places in Redmond, Washington. Those days of public liberty caps are rare and unusal.
However, Liberty caps like cubies are not found in every field one goes into no matter how many cattle are present and are rarer in dairy farms where the cattle are close to their milking stations nor are they too common where young cattle graze.. They do not grow directly from manure (except the P. sierrae's) which are rarer and the liberty caps attached theirselves to the roots of wild grasses, Sedge clumps of wild grassys along swampy regions of some fields in the PNW are good areas to lkook in and most wild grasses in pasturelands are a good example. They appear singlarly and in small colonies.
It took me two years of walking through dozens of pastures in the early 1970s before I found my first liberty cap and I thought they were P. pelliculosa which I identified them from the photo of P. pellicuolsa in Alexander H. Smith's Field Guide to Western Mushrooms.
The first day I found them it as over over 24 specimens. a day later more than 400. And my first experience occurred as my wife and I both ate close to sixty shroomns each, abouth 1/2 to three quarters of a fresh ounce. A very most religious and sexual experience close to that of a Mazatec ceremonial dose.
SO it is still ealy in the PNW (Especially according to Cardboard and others who have posted the no rain happeining posts, which is why one is probably bnot finding them) and the larger collections are usually made in the Whatcom/Skagit Valley County regions of northern Washington and in the Comex Valley in B.C.
However they do grow along the I-5 Corridor from Bandon Oregon to British Colombia and along the the Olympic range in the west of the PNW Towards the cascades in the east. And again, not in every field one walks through. SOmetimes you have to go from field to field
. They can also grow in certain areas or corners in a large field and not in the rest of the fields.
And one last time, all of those above descriptions provided regarding my photographs are all characteristics of the geneus Psilocybe and can be found on many of the more than 115 known psilocybian species of Psilocybe found around the world.
Liberty caps not only can have a nipple, but it can be proptracted or protruded or even listed as an umbo or none at all.
And Hygrophanous is also another chracteristic of the genera of Psilocybe meaning the brown fresh wet sriated margin and color of the cap will change to a straw-color as the cap dries after being picked or naturally from the sun or dry weather in their natural habitat or after being collected.
By from Viet-Nam.
mj
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thegoone
ufo spotter
Registered: 08/12/03
Posts: 38
Loc: dublin
Last seen: 21 years, 3 months
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Re: Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps! [Re: mjshroomer]
#1829094 - 08/19/03 09:16 AM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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for me not a mycologist
them discriptions really mean fuck all
too see and to touch and hold them then youll never forget
a photograph or more is the next best thing for me
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do at least sixty
but its only my first time
oh yeah do at least eighty
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whole9
LOVE ME BITCH
Registered: 04/28/03
Posts: 3,265
Last seen: 18 years, 6 months
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Re: Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps! [Re: thegoone]
#1829475 - 08/19/03 11:51 AM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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good info john. I love liberty's!
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ken1
...
Registered: 08/15/03
Posts: 5
Loc: uk
Last seen: 21 years, 2 months
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Re: Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps [Re: whole9]
#1839224 - 08/21/03 11:13 PM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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they always have a slight nipple, there is a nipple on every one of those pics u posted (which are all liberty caps), the colour changes depending on how wet they are, if they are wet they are brown, if they are dry they are lighter, off-white.
the caps normally curl under slightly.
the gills are dark/black.
the stem is thin, white & bends easily.
they bruise easily.
they smell kind of grassy/mushroomy, but not very strong.
find a friend that knows what they look like & locations, get them to show u how to pick.
the season starts here in about a month, im getting excited 
Edited by ken1 (08/21/03 11:42 PM)
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megaman3
Stranger
Registered: 06/07/02
Posts: 274
Last seen: 18 years, 5 months
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Re: Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps [Re: ken1]
#1839234 - 08/21/03 11:22 PM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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hi ken, thanks for your reply. Two things though:
> they bruise easily.
Not true with semilanceata (lib caps). They show no bluing except at the base of the stem.
> find a friend that knows what they look like & locations, get them > to show u how to pick
Unfortunately I don't know any local mushroom experts. Oh well :-)
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ken1
...
Registered: 08/15/03
Posts: 5
Loc: uk
Last seen: 21 years, 2 months
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Re: Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps [Re: megaman3]
#1839270 - 08/21/03 11:41 PM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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the caps do bruise easily, but not blue.
hehe, we learned this stuff at school
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megaman3
Stranger
Registered: 06/07/02
Posts: 274
Last seen: 18 years, 5 months
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Re: Damnit, now I'm turned off from hunting for liberty caps [Re: ken1]
#1840386 - 08/22/03 11:09 AM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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Ken, if they don't bruise blue, then what do you mean?
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Anonymous
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chek that!! [Re: megaman3]
#1840730 - 08/22/03 12:55 PM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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Mitchnast
Toadmonger
Registered: 10/27/99
Posts: 8,658
Loc: Okanagan 
Last seen: 5 days, 11 hours
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libby [Re: ]
#1840786 - 08/22/03 01:12 PM (21 years, 3 months ago) |
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i cant wait for the libs, they are the most potent mushroom ive ever consumed, they are also freely provided by mother nature with a little help from daddy farmer.
they are soooo good. its otherworldly.
plants and squirrels talk to me telepathically, you can feel them grow.
evrything you see you can feel, and on low doses.
what you would normally eat in cubensis for a strong trip would send you to the nether reaches of creation, a confusing garble of imagery all twisted and aqueous, sky and earth mixed like a geometrically patterned
floatsam of flooding matter full of trees and grasses, repeting 3d self-portraits in evry pose meke up the landscape on a pathway that has no beginning or end, you can walk in any direction and go nowhere, VERY easy to get lost. i personally got lost on a single set of train tracks, id forget which direction i was going because it was all the same and both directions met in the middle like a giant ladder that looped like a hamster wheel. ohyeah. legs were all twisty and a hundred miles long. they twisted in conjunction with the patterned chaos all around.
so in summary, if you give up on liberty caps because you dont think you can tell them apart from other mushrooms, they youve just thrown away the most golden opportunity you can find in this existance.
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megaman3
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