Psilocybe Cyanescens

Description

Dried Psilocybe Cyanescens, also known as the Buy Wavy Cap Mushrooms or powerful psilocybe, is a psychedelic mushroom. Psilocybin and psilocin are the primary chemicals responsible for its psychedelic effects. It is a member of the Hymenogastraceae family.

Elsie Wakefield published a formal description of the species in the Transactions of the British Mycological Society in 1946, based on a specimen she had recently obtained at Kew Gardens. She had started collecting the species in 1910.

Adults are not thought to be physically threatened by the fungus. Because all of the psychoactive components in P. cyanescens are water-soluble, parboiling can render the fruiting bodies non-psychoactive, allowing them to be used in cooking.

However, because most people find them extremely bitter and they are too little to have much nutritional benefit, this is not done very often. Psilocybe cyanescens may produce massive amounts of fruit; more than 100,000 individual mushrooms were discovered growing in a single patch at an English racecourse.

Dried Psilocybe Cyanescens Identification and Description

• Cap: Small to medium-sized, becoming almost flat with age except for the usually wavy margins. Brown when young, becoming yellowish or buff with age. Bruises blue. Thin. Smooth, sticky when wet, older specimens are brittle.
• Gills: Brownish when young, becoming darker with age. Edges are pale.  In very young specimens, the gills are covered by a webby sheet of tissue called a veil. This tears off as the cap expands.
• Stem: Longish, thin, sometimes thicker at the base, smooth, white, bruises blue. After the veil tears, its remnants form a subtle ring zone on the stem.
• Spores: Elliptical and smooth.
• Spore color: Purple-gray to purple-brown.
• Edibility: Psychoactive
• Habitat: Eats and fruits from woody debris, leaf litter, and wood chips such as those used in landscaping. Sometimes fruits in clumps.
• Range: In North America, most common in California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, though sometimes present in the east as well. Common in Europe, though probably not native there.

The wavy-margined cap, as well as the mushroom’s ability to stain blue, are distinguishing characteristics. Because this species shares its habitat with the appropriately named The Deadly Galerina (Galerina marginata), it’s vital to examine the spore print color while gathering for ingestion. The spores of the latter are reddish-brown rather than purple-brown.

Look-Alikes

Wavy-cap is a “LBM,” or tiny brown mushroom, a wide group of generally unrelated species that can be difficult to distinguish without paying close attention to the features. The group contains the majority of psychoactive species, a few noteworthy culinary species, and a few dangerous, even lethal-toxic species.

Other Psychoactives

Psilocybes [v] are the closest relatives to wavy-cap.These either lack the distinctive wavy edge that other wavy-caps develop or do not share the same habitat. Most have further, subtler changes, particularly in older specimens.

However, younger representatives of all of these species may seem extremely similar. While all of these psychoactive species are reasonably harmless, knowing which is which is vital since potency varies—sometimes considerably.

Psychoactive species in numerous other genera, such as Panaeolus, have similar appearances but can be distinguished by paying close attention to detail.