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Can you identify mushrooms from a written description?
| Q: |
I've recently found some mushroom specimens growing from deer dung in the Tillamook State Forest outside of Forest Grove, Oregon. Would it be accurate to say these mushrooms could be Psilocybe Coprophila? I haven't done any spore prints, but they appear to resemble many pictures I've seen of this type of psilocybe. These have a dark brownish to orange cap color with a shiny cap tip that appears a slightly different coloring than the rest of the cap. The cap is definetly conical with brown gills and a woody brown, fibrous looking stem that is thin.
Also, I've found some small mushrooms with tiny stems and concave caps. The stems have a light orange tint and turn white at the top - they're somewhat shiny/moist. The gills appear white to light gray. The caps are brownish gray or tan and become lighter toward the outside. Some of them are a bit wavy. What might these be? A type of coniferous psilocybe? Maybe P. Pelliculosa or P. Silvatica?
All of these shrooms are from a very moist, coniferous-mulchy, mossy, woody, environment where it rained heavily the day prior to their picking. |
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| A: |
Trying to identify a specific mushroom species from a written description can be a dangerous past-time...one we're not willing to participate in. There are many look-alikes which can be difficult for an experienced mushroom collector to differentiate even when seen side by side.
Psilocybes fall into a class which David Arora (author os Mushrooms Demystified) calls "little brown mushrooms". There are thousands of species which are nearly indistinguishable to the untrained collector. Some of these are dangerous, some edible, some hallucinogenic, and most give a nasty stomach-ache.
The only ways to go about learning mushroom collecting are to join a local mycology club, pick up a few good field guides (we'd recommend both Mushrooms Demystified and Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World, both available through our online library), and/or find a friend knowledgeable about mushrooms who will go out on forays with you. Most important is to realize that if you are not complete confident about the identificatiion of a particular mushroom, eating it is a risk I would not recommend.
You might try bringing the mushrooms to a meeting of a local mycology club to ask for help in identification. Even if it's too late to consume these particular specimens...you can always go back and find more.
Sorry we weren't able to help with the identification.
peace,
sage |
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[ Mushrooms (Psilocybin) ]
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