Tasmanian substrates

[spiders]

Makarorae seems to me to be the most interesting of australiasian native Psilocybes - probably because its not one that you could expect to naturalise in mainland australia - due to its predominant beech and hardwood substrates.

But dont they have beech and hardwood forests in Tasmania?? I wonder if anyone has examined these forests in detail for a similar native psilocybe.

[Rev]

Theres beech on the mainland too

even in nthn NSW, maybe even qld in isolated patches

[spiders]

any native beech in victoria?

[reshroomED]

Myrtle Beech (Nothofagus cunninghammi) are native to the Otways, the cool-temperate sections being predominantly Beech and Blackwood. Large areas of this have been cleared, but there's still plenty of old-growth.

Access can be tricky these days though, as the public are denied entry to any areas being logged. This can mean that tracks leading into the more remote parts are closed.

ed

[ 04. December 2004, 14:10: Message edited by: reshroomED ]

[spiders]

this year we are going hunting up there then - ive got a good feeling and im fit and healthy again - thank god!

[rkundalini]

This is an interesting topic, because sclerophyllous forest and woodland (Eucalyptus etc) is a real newcomer to Australia. Prior to about 40,000 years ago it was relatively rare and genera such as Nothofagus were the dominant trees. I wonder whether (a) the subaeruginosa complex adapted from these to predominantly Eucalypt substrates at this time and ( whether some species of fungi were largely wiped out by this but survive in patches of remnant rainforest (e.g. P. makarorae??). It has been suggested that this change was associated with ecolological changes caused by the arrival of aborigines, i.e. elimination of megafauna by hunting, and frequent burning (e.g. Tim Flannery - The Future Eaters). Obviously the latter would be quite important to fungi as well as the secondary effect of a change in substrate flora.

[Fenris]

How many different types of psilocybin containing mushrooms are found naturally in Tazmania?

Does Taz have its own cubes, subs and what about Ps.tazmaniana.

I have heard that the Taz cube strains are "extremely potent" are these a Taz variety of the cold climate subs or are they a warm climate variety of cubes.

I was under the impression that all cube strains were medium to low potency.

[Rev]

define low??

as mckenna said dry 5g should manifest the full spectrum of effects in an average size adult

5g isnt all that much really

Blue meanies i think is 1.5 to 2g should do it

and subs i think are equivalent

that said IMO all cubes r the same (within reasonable parameters and for practical assumptions)

what matters more is environmental, nutritional and post harvest treatment. Genetics is a minor player

RK

australias a big place so the aboriginal effect is equally different all over

I wouldnt doubt that RF patches acroos teh top end have sufferred and continue to do so from burning practices or that rainforest margins are in flux with fire

but to say that Eucs have only been dominant for 4o ooo years is prob inaccurate on a grand scale

My impression from the biogeological perspective is that our veg was preadapted to sclerophylly very early on due to low nutrients

species like banksia originating in rainforest soil of poor nutrition developed sclerophylly

these preadapted plants were then able to respond when the climate dried significantly around 15 million years ago. weve also been moving north into the subtropical thunderstorm belt that would increase fire prevalence.

Its safer to assume that sclerophyllous vegetation is fire tolerant that actually liking it. Many sclerophyllous plants are killed outright by fire and have to regenerate from seed like banksias and some casaurinas, whereas the more completey fire adapted species like lignotuberous mallees or the mountain ash require fire to maintain ecosystem dominace

what the aboriginal migrations would have done would be to increase frequency and eliminate fire sensitive species from systems, not necessarily recreate them, and shift the selective forces in favour of wet sclerophyll over RF. In some areas like SW WA the nothofagus was already long gone by the time aboriginals arrived, the soils being too poor an dthe rainfall too low and erratic to support them. There are some relic species of fungi there that have survived by adapting to eucalypt symbionts instead

however in teh wettest tallest areas aboriginal burning may not be an issue either

im not sure of the occupation of areas like victorias mountain ash or the SW's karri and tingle but such large trees that regenrate after crown fire dont appear to offer any advantage and it would be a difficult and dangerous thing to intentionally light up. Its more likley that these areas werent used much and the flux there is due to natural cycles of drought on much longer timescales.

as time fgoes on i think itll be more apparent that much of the continent was little changed prob brecuase burning was difficult or dangerous work for little rewards in increased production while areas that responded favourably - like open sclerophyll woodland and savannah or grasslands were actively and intensively managed

The area around Esperance WA is a good example. Thsi land wasnt occupied at all except for fishing trips to the coast as a vast area has no potable surface water. all the creeks and lakes are salty for hundreds of KM. There were clans to the west near ravensthorpe and to the north from norseman and the east in the limestone bits taht lead to the nullarbor

but this area is difficut o distinguish floristically from similar areas NW that were inhabited.

[ 07. January 2005, 00:11: Message edited by: reville ]

[reshroomED]

I find it interesting too, in that this is an area with large tracts still untouched by man's presence, aboriginal or european (apart from the sections that have been brutally raped and replaced with pines - these bastards clear-fell pristine forest and then aerial spray defoliant in domestic water catchment!).

Scrub density inhibits movement too much for hunting to have had any significant impact, and the high rainfall precludes major fires.

There are two distinct psilocybes in these mts to my untrained eye. I strongly suspect that someone with mycological knowledge would find more.

To this end I've been trying to coax a few of the shroom-gurus out here for a trip for a while.

 

quote:

---

this year we are going hunting up there then - ive got a good feeling and im fit and healthy again - thank god!

---

- Gotcha in writing this time :D

ed

[spiders]

youve all made good points there. The conversion to our current eucalypt-dominated environment i wasnt aware of.

WHen looking at NZ its quite interesting how pockets of different types of trees yielded very different and isolated Psilocybes, whereas in Australia - perhaps because subs are such an aggressive species (a friend in the UK was investigating the possibility that their native cyanescens was now being over-run by a more robust Australian subaeruginosa replacement) this hasnt happened in Australia??

Cubensis in Tasmania is a no go - i emailed BIO a while ago as he was the one who claimed that it came from there and he admitted that it could have come from anywhere between NSW and Tasmania. Its way too cold for cubensis to thrive in tasmania in my opinion, so i doubt its from there - no one else seems to find it there and the stories if victorian cubies are also pretty doubtful.

Ive never found true Ps.tasmaniana - but ive read what little is available on it. Seems that its only ever been correctly collected twice and might have just been an anomoly.

[rkundalini]

re eucalypt domination, make sure you read reville's post ... it seems I was probably misled (by Flannery) with the 40,000 years thing and would hate to perpetuate it. Still, the conversion did happen at one stage, more likely several million years ago, still the considerations for Psilocybes (and woodlovers in general) probably apply.

[spiders]

The thing about subaeruginosa that is surprising is how similar it is to cyanescens - whether your looking at rna, cystidia, etc, they are quite similar which would lead most to conclude that its a fairly recent arrival in Australia.

[rkundalini]

Something I have always wondered about but never looked into (so excuse my ignorance) is, couldn't fungi relatively easily spread throughout the globe by wind currents? They are a similar size to nuclear fallout particles, which certainly does this. It may be unlikely but on timescales of thousands of years or so it seems almost inevitable, no?

[spiders]

This was one of Terence McKenna's contentions - and he would have successfully argued it, had he not jumped to the conclusion that mushroom spores were ideal for space travel, and were most likely seeded from outerspace...