Psilocybe ovoideocystidiata

  Psilocybe ovoideocystidiata is a psilocybin-containing mushroom first documented in Pennsylvania and also known from Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia. This mushroom bruises blue where handled and has been put into the Stuntzii section of Psilocybe because it has subrhomboid thick walled spores and an annulus. It is closely related to to P. subaeruginascens from Java, P. septentrionalis from Japan, and P. wayanadensis from India.

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This mushroom was first documented by Richard V. Gaines in Montgomery County in June of 2003 and has become common in the Ohio river valley.

Its range and appearance are similar to Psilocybe caerulipes, and it can be distinguished by its rhomboid spores and membranous annulus.

Some specimens of Psilocybe ovoideocystidiata turn blue immediately when bruised, while others have a delayed or almost absent bluing reaction. The mushroom often turns blue in the absence of bruising as it dries out.

Description

• Cap: Surface smooth, convex to subumbonate, 1.5 to 4 cm across, chestnut brown, olive green, or white. Slippery when moist with striations at the edge, fading to buff as it dries and often turning blue.
• Gills: adnate attachment and range from whitish to rusty brown, lavender, or dark purple brown.
• Spores: Dark purple brown, rhomboid to subrhomboid in face view, subellipsoid in side view, 8 x 6 micrometers.
• Stipe: 2 to 7.5 cm long, hollow, smooth at the top and often having small scales near the bottom, colored whitish with irregular yellowish, brownish, or bluish patches. With a membranous annulus.
• Taste: farinaceous
• Odor: farinaceous
• Microscopic features: Two types of cheilocystidia and pleurocystidia are present.

This mushroom quickly (after a few minutes) bruises blue when damaged.

References

• New Species of Hallucinogenic Psilocybe from the Eastern U.S.A. - International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms, Vol. 9, pp. 75–77 (2007)