Psilocybe cyanofibrillosa

🏷️ Description

The name "cyanofibrillosa" refers to the bluish fibrils on its stem, which intensify with age or handling. This mushroom is closely related to Psilocybe cyanescens but can be distinguished by its smaller spores, frequent forking cheilocystidia, and absence of pleurocystidia.

🧪 Potency & Chemistry:

• High in psilocin, lower in psilocybin.

• Potency decreases by over 70% when dried.

• Active compounds: 0.05 mg/g dry weight of psilocybin and 1.4 mg/g of psilocin.

Common names: Blue-Haired Psilocybe, Rhododendron Psilocybe

🔎 Identification

🧢 Cap:

• Size: 0.39 to 1.38 inches (1 to 3.5 cm) across.

• Shape: Starts conic, becomes broadly convex, eventually flattens.

• Color: Deep chestnut brown, hygrophanous—fades to pale tan, yellowish brown, or grayish white when dry.

• Texture: Viscid when moist, covered by a separable gelatinous pellicle.

🌿 Gills:

• Attachment: Adnate to adnexed, sometimes slightly subdecurrent.

• Color: Begin light gray, turn purplish-brown with age, edges remain whitish.

📏 Stem:

• Size: 30–70 mm long, 2–4 mm thick.

• Color: Yellow-brown to light tan, adorned with fine fibrils that bruise bluish.

• Structure: Straight or slightly flexuous, often thicker at the base, with a white cortina that may leave remnants or an annular zone.

• Base: White rhizomorphs present.

🎨 Color Changes: Develops blue or indigo-black hues when handled, most prominently at the stem, cap edges, and base.

🔬 Microscopic Features:

• Spores: Purplish-brown in deposit, 9–12 × 5.5–7 µm, subellipsoid.

• Cheilocystidia: Fusiform to lanceolate, 22–33 × 5.5–7 µm, with a forked neck.

• Pleurocystidia: Absent.

🌎 Habitat & Distribution: This enchanting mushroom thrives in the Pacific Northwest from northern California to British Columbia, Canada. It prefers soils rich in deciduous wood debris, including alder and willow wood chips, fir sawdust, and bark mulch. You can often find it scattered among bush lupines, in rhododendron gardens, nurseries, and floodplains near river estuaries. 🍂 Season: September to December.

Photo source: Ganymede (CC BY-SA 4.0)