Cubes in Tassie & spore prints.

[DreamingNagual]

Greetings Folks,

I have always thought that in Tasmania we only had the Psilocybe tasmaniana,subaeruginosa, eucalyptas and semilanceata ect. And The Copelandia cyanescens.

Do the first 3 species listed all look pretty much the same as your general sub like mushroom? ie Little gold phallic like tops when they are younger and growing out either large flat caps or umberella,Nipple like caps with thick stems at adult stage?

Also what species are the fungi that people refer to as liberty caps? Is it Psilocybe semilanceata?

I beleive I have found something very much like these just going by pics on wiki and erowid, Of course I would not consume these without fully identifiying them 100% to be what I am looking for.

Has anyone found these semilanceata in australia or tassie and I am curious to know if anyone has had any success themselves or heard of others finding cubensis & Copelandia cyanescens in tasmania?

Forgive me if these are obvious questions, I have searched wiki & Erowid but cant find much info apart from the usual basic info on these 2 fungi! and J, Allens guide to aus & NZ Mushrooms.www.erowid.org/library/books_online/magic_mushrooms_aunz/magic_mushrooms_aunz.shtml/

Also A question about spore prints,

I have laid out a sheet of foil onto newspaper & place caps about 4-5 cm apart covering the sheet then laying a sheet of newspaper on top.

It was then placed on a clothes rack on the back of a door in a room that is a constant 19 degrees celcius for 3 days.

The spores have now dropped & i have removed the caps to dry further, I am now left with a sheet of foil covered by about 30 spore prints that I have just folded onto itself inside a sheet or 4 of newspaper.

1 - How would I best preserve the best ones after I have cut them from the sheet?

2 - Can I just wash the rest into water to make a "Spore Water" Solution?

I assume bottled spring water would be better than tap water, I want to put it into a spray bottle and spread the water back over woodchips and the beds that they originated in

Thankyou.

Edited June 3, 2008 by DreamingNagual

[Genesis]

Hey man, I don't know a great deal about shrooms but I do know that alot of spore sites sell a Tassie strain of cubensis;

http://www.spores101.com/psilocybe-spore-strains3.html

"Tasmanian Tall slender fruits with small to average sized caps. Great strain, very visual and will bring a smile to your face! Average rizomorphic mycelium. Tasmanian (psilocybe cubensis) mushroom strain"

I also read a similar thread not to long ago on this topic. I am sure if you do a forum search you can find it. People seemed to be of the opinion that cubes don't grow in Tas due to the cold climate etc. But I have seen at least 4 spore sites that sell this strain of cube. Sorry in no help, good luck, Gen

*Edit* I am assuming your caps are non-active, lol.

Edited June 3, 2008 by Genesis

[DreamingNagual]

Thankyou for the link Gen, That is a new site for me!

As for it being to cold for Cubes, Thats exactly what I have been told by a few "Know it alls"

But Its not really THAT cold down here & I want to set my curious mind to ease once and for all!

I do hear that they occur closer to the warmer months like late spring to summer?

As for the caps, Of course they be non active my friend.... Of Course they be

Edited June 3, 2008 by DreamingNagual

[Ace]

Yep, P. subaeruginosa, P. eucalypta, P. australiana are all pretty much identical visually (only differing in appearance when under a microscope - different basidia and spore shape, I believe). Look up pics of P. subaeruginosa for a visual ID (better yet, hit the recent 'Melbourne Finds' thread for shitloads of pics). 'Liberty Caps' are indeed P. semilanceata.

P. cubensis is not likely to be found in the wild down in Tas - it is naturally occuring in a more sub/tropical climate (north NSW and QLD), but you never know, there might be some that have escaped clandistine culture (spores on the wind) or may have been accidentally been brought here with cattle from around QLD (hooves, internally, in their hair, farmers, etc).

Not sure how the 'Tassie' strain of P. cubensis came to be - quite possibly from someone who scored some prints and cleaned them up/cultivated them in Tassie and spread prints from these around (speculation only). Who knows, it might have just came from Aus and some American slapped a Tassie label on it because they thought it sounded better than QLD (speculation again).

Your printing method was a little excessive - you dont need to wait an entire three days. 6-24 hours is often more than enough, and you will get more spores if the caps are moist, not drying during the print. Put a drop of water onto a fresh cap and print under an upturned glass or something similar to keep humidity high and spore release at its max. You can often get 2 prints from each cap with this method.

Also, it was probably wasteful to put your spore solution (water) back onto the same patch as where you got these from. Odds are that the bed was already well colonised with mycelium and didnt need any new spores (which would in turn create more mycelium). Better off squirting them onto a plate of agar or a PF-style cake or onto a nice moist patch of un-colonised chips in another bed.

Hope this helps

[Hyphal]

Yep, P. subaeruginosa, P. eucalypta, P. australiana are all pretty much identical visually (only differing in appearance when under a microscope - different basidia and spore shape, I believe).

Hey Ace, as far as I'm aware they have now been re-classified and are all now simply considered subearuginosa.

Résumé / Abstract

Comparative morphology, isozyme analysis and mating compatibility approaches were used to investigate the relationships between Psilocybe subaeruginosa and three closely related taxa, P. australiana, P. eucalypta and P. tasmaniana. The four names were found to represent one species, and the use of microscopic features such as coloured pleurocystidia or neck length of cheilocystidia were shown to be inappropriate taxonomic discriminators in the separation of the four taxa. Zymograms of extracellular enzymes of laccase, peroxidase, acid phosphatase, pectinesterase and polygalacturonase were useful tools for delineation of taxa within the genus Psilocybe. The name P. subaeruginosa is retained and P. australiana, P. eucalypta and P. tasmaniana are reduced to synonyms. A lectotype is designated (...)

LINK

[~shameless~]

Quite strange, a species with so much different form,

Other species like stropharia aurantiaca dont seem to have such differing qualities

[Ace]

Thanks for the link Hyphal - I had thought this would be the case sooner or later. It would be good to track down some more info on this. I'll have to put my searching cap on...