Psilocybe mescaleroensis

Psilocybe mescaleroensis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Fungi
Division:	Basidiomycota
Class:	Agaricomycetes
Order:	Agaricales
Family:	Strophariaceae
Genus:	Psilocybe
Species:	P. mescaleroensis
Binomial name
Psilocybe mescaleroensis Guzmán, Walstad, E.Gándara & Ram.-Guill. (2007)

Psilocybe mescaleroensis
Mycological characteristics
	gills on hymenium
	cap is conical or convex
	hymenium is adnate or adnexed
	stipe is bare
	spore print is purple-brown
	ecology is saprotrophic
	edibility: psychoactive

Psilocybe mescaleroensis is a psychedelic mushroom which has psilocybin and psilocin as main active compounds. This mushroom is closely related to Psilocybe cyanescens. It was brought to scientific attention by Lee Walstad.

Description

• Cap: 2 - 6 cm, convex to subumbonate, brownish-yellow, hygrophanous, margin striate when moist, often with an orangish center, broad umbo and wavy margin. Has a separable gelatinous pellicle. Bruising bluish where damaged.
• Gills: Cream color when young, chocolate brown in age, with adnate to adnexed attachment.
• Spores: Dark chocolate brown, subrhomboid to subovoid, thick-walled, 9 - 12 x 6 - 8 µm.
• Stipe: 5 - 10 cm long, .5 to 2 cm thick, white, sometimes with light orange patches, fibrillose, equal to slightly enlarged near the top. Annulus fragile and membranous, white or dusted with dark brown spores. Stem base with rhizomorphic mycelium. Bluing where damaged.
• Taste: Slightly farinaceous.
• Odor: Slightly farinaceous.
• Microscopic features: Pleurocystidia absent. Cheilocystidia 20 - 30 x 6 µm, fusiform or ventricose-rostrate, sometimes forked.

Distribution and habitat

Grows scattered to gregariously on dead grasses, in grasslands and savanna near ponderosa pine woodlands, often near gopher holes. Found in the summer and fall in the Sierra Blanca range of New Mexico, near Mescalero, New Mexico. So far it has only been collected in or near the type locality.

References

• Guzmán, Gastón, Lee Walstad, Etelvina Gándara & Florencia Ramírez-Guillén. (2007). A new bluing species of Psilocybe, section Stuntzii from New Mexico, U.S.A. Mycotaxon 99: 223–226.