This mushroom has entered the wider eye of the mushroom community because of Paul Stamets infamous book titled “Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms.” The book describes how this species effortlessly thrives on wood chips in simple garden vegetable beds — an attractive trait for the mushroom connoisseur that wants to cultivate psychedelic shrooms outside. It seems that the geographical location where the shrooms are collected can have some kind of effect on potency. Samples collected from the Czech Republic in Europe have produced phenomenal psilocybin levels, whereas samples from elsewhere in Europe have produced less.

Apart from places such as Jamaica, The Netherlands, and Brazil, psilocybin is illegal to consume, produce, distribute, and possess. In a 1985 analysis of Psilocybe cyanescens by T Stijve and T W Kuyper, samples collected from Europe also produced varied potency results [ 2]. The psilocybin levels of dry P.cyanescens were in the range of 0.1 to 0.80%, and psilocin levels were between 0.04 and 0.47%. This is again a lot of variation and a lower range than Beug and Bigwood’s results from the mushrooms found in the Pacific Northwest. However, there are a few other wood-loving species of mushrooms that look similar. Many of the similar species may not be lethal but could be highly toxic. If left untreated, you can become extremely weak and develop a serious illness a couple of days after ingesting the amatoxins. Often, it’s too late to recover from the poison by this time, and soon after becoming weak, the organs fail — causing death in many cases.

How to

Never eat a mushroom unless you’re 100% certain of its identity. You shouldn’t rely solely on this short section to identify Psilocybin cyanescens. On the one hand, the high potency means you’ll consume far less organic matter when consuming a sub-psychedelic dose. This makes it far easier to fit single microdoses of dry ground mushrooms into small capsules or less hassle to ingest the un-powdered organic matter orally. The most likely explanation involves the compound aeruginascin — a compound similar to psilocybin that has been identified in certain Psilocybe species. The main theory is that aeruginascin undergoes similar dephosphorylation as psilocybin does when it converts to psilocin.

This species grows in abundance on wood, mulch, and in wood chip. If you find one Wavy Cap you’ll often find tens, if not hundreds more. However, foraging for them can be risky business. Psilocybe cyanescens has several lookalikes, some of which contain deadly amatoxins that can cause organ failure and in some cases, death. Psilocybe cyanescens grows on rotting wood, the woodland floor, mulch, and on vegetable beds across the globe. It’s found in deciduous and coniferous forests, but it prefers growing on wood from deciduous trees.Psilocybe cyanescens is a potent psilocybin mushroom comparable to strains such as Penis Envy and B+. However, being a wild species, the exact psilocybin levels can vary drastically. Although in Canada, psilocybin remains illegal, several dispensaries openly sell them. It seems that, similar to places such as the Netherlands, the Canadian government turns a blind eye to soft drug use. Moreover, a single sheet of basswood presents a multitude of possibilities. One such example is this captivating wavy shelf. I utilized only one layer of wood to fashion the wave design on this shelf. Once the design was created, it was a straightforward process to merge and cut it in Cricut Design Space, resulting in a perfectly sized piece for my shelf. I personally constructed this 60cm long shelf by employing a 60 cm x 20 cm piece of wood and affixing a 60 cm x 3 cm wood strip along the edge using adhesive, nails, and screws (which are certainly not prone to breakage!). The most densely populated areas in North America are within the Pacific Northwest, stretching from California to Vancouver. However, they can be found across the US and Canada in smaller populations.