From the Latin words caerulea (blue) and pes (foot).
Description
Psilocybe caerulipes has a
farinaceous taste and a no to slightly farinaceous odor.
The cap is 1 — 3.5 cm in diameter, obtusely
conic to
convex, and the margin is initially turned inwards, later becoming broadly convex to flattened or somewhat
umbilicate while retaining a slight umbo, and at times quite irregular. The surface is
viscid when moist from a gelatinous
pellicle, but soon becomes dry and shiny, translucent-striate, and decorated with fine
fibrillose veil remnants near the margin, often with greenish stains near the margin or a greenish tinge overall. It is cinnamon brown to dingy brown when fresh,
hygrophanous, and soon fading to dingy
ochraceous buff to cinnamon buff. The flesh is thin, pliant, bruising blue, sometimes slowly.
The gills are close to crowded, narrow with
adnate to
sinuate to
uncinate attachment. They are light brown at first, becoming rusty cinnamon as the spores mature; the edges are whitish and slightly fimbriate.
The spores are dark purple brown, ellipsoid, 7—10 x 4—5
µm from 4-spored
basidia, thick-walled, and with a broad germ pore. The spores from 2-spored basidia are larger.
The stipe is 3–6 cm long, 1.5–3 mm thick, equal to enlarging downwards, tough, and is whitish to buff at first. The stipe is pallid to bluish when dried, becoming dingy brown towards the base with age, and bruises blue, sometimes slowly. The surface is powdered at the apex, and covered with whitish to grayish
fibrils downwards. The flesh is stuffed with a
pith and is solid at first but becomes hollow. It lacks an
annulus but sometimes remnants of the thin cortinate partial veil form a soon disappearing
fibrillose annular zone in the upper region of the stem.
Microscopic features: The
basidia are 2- and 4-spored.
Pleurocystidia are absent. The
cheilocystidia are 18—35 x 4.5—7.5
µm, langeniform (swollen at the base, narrowed at the top), and with a thin neck, sometimes forked, 1–2.5
µm broad at apices.[2]
Habitat
Psilocybe caerulipes may be found growing solitary to cespitose, in
deciduous forests on hardwood slash and debris, plant matter, on or about decaying hardwood logs,
birch,
beech and
maple.
Season
Psilocybe caerulipes grows from late May through December.
^
abSinger R, Smith AH. (1958). Mycological investigations on Teonanácatl, the Mexican hallucinogenic mushroom. Part II. A taxonomic monograph of Psilocybe, section Caerulescentes. Mycologia50(2): 262-303.
^Guzmán G. (1973). Some distributional relationships between Mexican and United States mycofloras. Mycologia65: 1319-1330.
Further reading
Stamets, Paul (1996). Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press.
ISBN978-0-9610798-0-2.
Guzmán, G. The Genus Psilocybe: A Systematic Revision of the Known Species Including the History, Distribution and Chemistry of the Hallucinogenic Species. Beihefte zur Nova Hedwigia Heft 74. J. Cramer, Vaduz, Germany (1983) [now out of print].