Psilocybe subaeruginosa

Cleland · Psilocybe sect. Cyanescens

Subs · Gold top (misapplied)

Very high potency

The main potent wild species of southeastern Australia and New Zealand, closely related to P. cyanescens and comparable in strength. It shares its habitat with several deadly Galerina relatives, which makes careful identification unusually important here.

Photo: prossington, 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: 0.45–1.93% of dry weight
Psilocin: 0.1–0.6% of dry weight
Total tryptamines: 0.6–2.2%
Relative to cubensis: 1.90×

Assays place it alongside cyanescens and occasionally higher. Treat it as roughly twice cubensis.

Dose ranges for this species

Tier	Dried	Psilocybin-equivalent	What to expect
Threshold	0.16–0.26 g	1.9–3.2 mg	Mild body load, slight colour and texture enhancement, mood shift.
Light	0.26–0.53 g	3.2–6.3 mg	Clear perceptual change. Surfaces breathe, emotions amplify, time distorts mildly.
Common	0.53–1.31 g	6.3–15.8 mg	Full psychedelic effect. Strong visuals with eyes closed, altered thought, emotional intensity.
Strong	1.31–2.63 g	15.8–31.5 mg	Ordinary self-reference goes. Marked visual distortion, time stops behaving.
Heavy	2.63 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 long fibrous ringless stem from woody debris in Australian or New Zealand forest, bruising strongly blue, with a purple-brown print.

Cap: 2–5 cm, conical to convex, sometimes with a slight umbo. Chestnut, drying to straw, hygrophanous.
Gills: Adnate, pale becoming purple-brown.
Stem: 5–15 cm, often long and slender, fibrous, white, with conspicuous basal mycelium.
Ring: Absent; a faint veil remnant at most.
Flesh: Bruises strongly blue.
Spore print: Dark purple-brown
Bruising: Strong blue

Habitat

Substrate: Wood chips, Rotting logs, Pine plantation debris, Garden mulch
Regions: Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales, South Australia, New Zealand
Season: April to August, the southern autumn and winter

Common in pine plantations and urban mulch. Galerina species grow in the same places at the same time and have killed people who confused them.

Look-alikes

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

Galerina marginataDeadly
Spore print: Rusty brown to ochre-brown

Cultivation

intermediate

Outdoor beds as for cyanescens. Indoor cultivation is possible but not straightforward.

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)

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