Psilocybe azurescens

Psilocybe azurescens
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Fungi
Division:	Basidiomycota
Class:	Agaricomycetes
Order:	Agaricales
Family:	Hymenogastraceae
Genus:	Psilocybe
Species:	P. azurescens
Binomial name
Psilocybe azurescens Stamets & Gartz (1995)

Psilocybe azurescens
Mycological characteristics
	gills on hymenium
	cap is convex or umbonate
	hymenium is adnate or sinuate
	stipe is bare
	spore print is blackish-brown to purple
	ecology is saprotrophic
	edibility: psychoactive

cap is convex

hymenium is adnate

spore print is blackish-brown

Psilocybe azurescens is a psychedelic mushroom whose main active compounds are psilocybin and psilocin. It is among the most potent of the tryptamine-bearing mushrooms, containing up to 1.8% psilocybin, 0.5% psilocin, and 0.4% baeocystin by dry weight, averaging to about 1.1% psilocybin and 0.15% psilocin, makes it one of the strongest mushrooms in psilocybe genus. It belongs to the family Hymenogastraceae in the order Agaricales.

The cap (pileus) of Psilocybe azurescens is 30–100 mm in diameter, conic to convex, expanding to broadly convex and eventually flattening with age with a pronounced, persistent broad umbo; surface smooth, viscous when moist, covered by a separable gelatinous pellicle; chestnut to ochraceous brown to caramel in color often becoming pitted with dark blue or bluish black zones, hygrophanous, fading to light straw color in drying, strongly bruising blue when damaged; margin even, sometimes irregular and eroded at maturity, slightly incurved at first, soon decurved, flattening with maturity, translucent striate and often leaving a fibrillose annular zone in the upper regions of the stipe. Lamellae ascending, sinuate to adnate, brown, often stained into-black where injured, close, with two tiers of lamellulae, mottled, edges whitish. Spore-print dark purplish brown to purplish black in mass. Stipe 90–200 mm long by 3–6 mm thick, silky white, dingy brown from the base or in age, hollow at maturity. Composed of twisted, cartilaginous tissue. Base of stipe thickening downwards, often curved, and characterized by coarse white aerial tufts of mycelium, often with azure tones. Mycelium surrounding stipe base densely rhizomorphic (i.e., root-like), silky white, tenaciously holding the wood-chips together, strongly bruising bluish upon disturbance. They have no odor to slightly farinaceous. Their taste is extremely bitter.

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Wikipedia