Psilocybe baeocystis
Singer & A.H. Sm. · Psilocybe sect. Cyanescens
Knobby top · Bottle cap · Blue bell
A potent Pacific Northwest species, and the mushroom baeocystin was named after. Its dark olive-brown, often distorted cap makes it one of the more distinctive members of the group.
1 deadly look-alike. Galerina marginata can be mistaken for this species and causes irreversible organ damage. How to tell them apart.
Potency
- Psilocybin
- 0.15–0.85% of dry weight
- Psilocin
- 0.06–0.59% of dry weight
- Total tryptamines
- 0.3–1.55%
- Relative to cubensis
- 1.59×
Notably high baeocystin content alongside psilocybin and psilocin. Roughly one and a half times cubensis.
Dose ranges for this species
| Tier | Dried | Psilocybin | What to expect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Threshold | 0.19–0.63 g | 1.9–6.3 mg | Mild body load, slight colour and texture enhancement, mood shift. |
| Light | 0.63–1.1 g | 6.3–11 mg | Clear perceptual change. Surfaces breathe, emotions amplify, time distorts mildly. |
| Common | 1.1–1.58 g | 11–15.8 mg | Full psychedelic effect. Strong visuals with eyes closed, altered thought, emotional intensity. |
| Strong | 1.58–3.15 g | 15.8–31.5 mg | Ordinary self-reference goes. Marked visual distortion, time stops behaving. |
| Heavy | 3.15 g and above | 31.5 mg and above | Complete disruption of the ordinary sense of being a person in a place. |
Scaled from the standard dried-cubensis tables by this species’ representative alkaloid content. Because that content varies between flushes, treat every figure as an estimate and start below it. Open the full calculator.
Identification
Easiest way to tell: A dark olive, knobbly, often distorted cap with a separable gelatinous skin, on a ringless stem in Pacific Northwest mulch.
- Cap
- 1.5–5 cm, conical to convex, often irregular or knobbly, dark olive to buff-brown, with a gelatinous separable pellicle and a translucent striate margin.
- Gills
- Adnate, greyish becoming dark purple-brown.
- Stem
- 5–8 cm, whitish to pale, sometimes tinged blue at the base.
- Ring
- Absent.
- Flesh
- Bruises blue.
- Spore print
- Dark purple-brown
- Bruising
- Blue
Habitat
- Substrate
- Wood chips, Bark mulch, Conifer debris, Lawns rich in woody matter
- Regions
- Pacific Northwest of the United States, British Columbia
- Season
- August to December
Common on landscaped ground and in conifer debris.
Look-alikes
Cultivation
Rarely cultivated. Outdoor beds are possible but it is much less tractable than cyanescens.
Cultivation guidesSources
- [1]Stamets, Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World (1996)
- [2]Beug & Bigwood, 'Psilocybin and psilocin levels in twenty species' (1982)