Psilocybe caerulipes

(Peck) Sacc. · Psilocybe sect. Cyanescens

Blue foot

Moderate potency

The eastern North American wood-loving Psilocybe. Uncommon, moderate in strength, and easily overlooked because it fruits sparsely on hardwood debris rather than in showy flushes.

Photo: Alan Rockefeller, CC BY, source.

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1 deadly look-alike. Galerina marginata can be mistaken for this species and causes irreversible organ damage. How to tell them apart.

Potency

Psilocybin: 0.15–0.6% of dry weight
Psilocin: 0.05–0.3% of dry weight
Total tryptamines: 0.2–0.85%
Relative to cubensis: 0.87×

Roughly comparable to cubensis, on very little data. The only published assay (2022) covered two collections, four mushrooms: about 0.22–0.57% psilocybin and 0.05–0.28% psilocin.

Dose ranges for this species

Tier	Dried	Psilocybin-equivalent	What to expect
Threshold	0.34–0.57 g	1.9–3.2 mg	Mild body load, slight colour and texture enhancement, mood shift.
Light	0.57–1.15 g	3.2–6.3 mg	Clear perceptual change. Surfaces breathe, emotions amplify, time distorts mildly.
Common	1.15–2.86 g	6.3–15.8 mg	Full psychedelic effect. Strong visuals with eyes closed, altered thought, emotional intensity.
Strong	2.86–5.73 g	15.8–31.5 mg	Ordinary self-reference goes. Marked visual distortion, time stops behaving.
Heavy	5.73 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: Blue staining confined largely to the stem base, on hardwood debris in eastern North America.

Cap: 1–3.5 cm, obtusely conical to convex, cinnamon to dingy brown, hygrophanous with a striate margin.
Gills: Adnate to sinuate, pale cinnamon becoming rusty-purple-brown.
Stem: 3–6 cm, pale above and brownish below, bruising blue at the base, the name.
Ring: Absent; a faint cortina in youth.
Flesh: Bruises blue, mostly at the stem base.
Spore print: Purple-brown
Bruising: Blue at the stem base

Habitat

Substrate: Birch and maple debris, Hardwood slash, Rotting logs
Regions: Northeastern United States, Great Lakes, Eastern Canada
Season: May to December, most often late summer and autumn

Associated with disturbed hardwood forest and logging debris.

Look-alikes

Compare every mushroom look-alike of Psilocybe caerulipes side by side, or read the full look-alikes guide.

Galerina marginataDeadly
Spore print: Rusty brown to ochre-brown

Cultivation

advanced

Rarely attempted and not reliably documented.

Cultivation guides

Medication interactions

These interactions come from psilocin itself, so they apply to every species; a more potent species means a larger dose of it. These medications are graded dangerous, caution, increases or not studied on Fungodex. Not listed here does not mean safe; check the full checker covers 24.

Sources

[1]Stamets, Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World (1996)
[2]Gotvaldová et al., 'Extensive collection of psychotropic mushrooms with determination of their tryptamine alkaloids' (2022)

How we research this: sources, evidence grading, review and updates.