Psilocybe subaeruginosa
Cleland · Psilocybe sect. Cyanescens
Subs · Gold top (misapplied)
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.
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 | What to expect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Threshold | 0.16–0.53 g | 1.9–6.3 mg | Mild body load, slight colour and texture enhancement, mood shift. |
| Light | 0.53–0.92 g | 6.3–11 mg | Clear perceptual change. Surfaces breathe, emotions amplify, time distorts mildly. |
| Common | 0.92–1.31 g | 11–15.8 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
Cultivation
Outdoor beds as for cyanescens. Indoor cultivation is possible but not straightforward.
Cultivation guidesSources
- [1]Stamets, Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World (1996)