Any finds in aussie yet?

[hebrew]

my son saw your pictures morg

and he says

"they are cute"

he has a good eye for a 3 year old

[PD.]

[apothecary]

I think things are pretty much rolling to a close around here.

I imagine a few more flushes will occur before everything finishes off, but I don't think I'll be doing any more hunting.

This season has been amazing, and I am certain that a large portion of my recent successes in life can be directly attributed to the motivational, teaching, loving power of subs.

One of the most important lessons I feel the mushrooms taught me this season

The psychoactive/spiritual effect of these native fungi operates on different levels.

Human ingestion of these fungi can be likened to the fungal lifecycle itself.

The brain represents substrate. The psychoactive effect on the brain is beneficial in the same way that mycelial tissue is beneficial to the ecosystem.

And of course that implies that the psychoactive experience (on a different level) is mycelial in itself.

I noticed that for every handfull of mushrooms I picked, I would usually only ingest a small amount myself and the rest was given away.

In this manner, the mycelium (psychoactive experience) spreads onto receptive substrates (the brains of various people). Depending on the appropriateness of the substrate (mindset and intent) the mycelium can have an effect ranging from extremely beneficial (one example would be the fact that I have not smoked any cigarettes since sub season started ) to benign (those brains that were lacking an appropriate mindset and intent seemed to enjoy themselves, but gained no lessons or insights from the experience).

Am I just blathering? The concept seems pretty cool (and apt?) in my head...

[apothecary]

As CS once said to me

"subs just make you wanna get up and vacuum your room!"

Edited August 6, 2006 by apothecary

[ballzac]

As CS once said to me

"subs just make you wanna get up and vacuum your room!"

The fruit, no doubt.

[PD.]

I think things are pretty much rolling to a close around here.

I imagine a few more flushes will occur before everything finishes off, but I don't think I'll be doing any more hunting.

My favorite patch has just started fruiting at long last. It is always the last in the area to fruit and after the sorry season we had here i wasnt expecting much but they eventually came up. But yeah, i am only expecting one more flush if that.

see pic in my last post.

[alkatrope]

Yeah the usual spots down here are completely bare..

Looked yesterday and not one Sub to be seen, and very little of other fungi, too..

[MORG]

Beautiful picture by the artist formerly known as Phleb.

[_e_]

passive daemon,

u might not have had a bumper season or anything close, but uve sure caught a bunch of bewdiful pics and interesting specimens...

sina- indeed it is interesting to note the way psilocybian interactions are all to familiar to their form and function in the way they flow through the human matrix.. i believe tripitaka did an interesting series of artworks and collaborative 'space creations' that went into ideas you just expressed a few years ago...

i was on my way to the opening of the said exhibit when i accidently fell into a cow pat full of giant cubensis and accidently insuffalated some spores (or something to that effect that didnt involve me ingesting cow dung but lead to a subsequent sense of altered state).

instead of making it to his exhibition i ended up stuck up a giant fig tree in the middle of newcastle for most of the night singing some kind of elvish enchantment..

i believe although we didnt make it to the exhibition, some of what he was intending with the space andthe artwork spread through the city structure (the substrate) as if an organic manifestation of mycelial networking and fruited through us (in taking the mushrooms we became the fruit of the mycelium) and then went out into the air as the reproduction of consciousness (the experience and subsequent experiences were all interlinked, and with the experience, we shared new information with others which invariably lead to their interest and or partaking in the said sacrament)... whilst we sang and played in the trees, we mused on how full of shroom friendly vibes the city was that particular evening...

[gerbil]

As CS once said to me

"subs just make you wanna get up and vacuum your room!"

reminds me of 3am showers and excessive blissful brushing of the teeth.

Seen adaptation after Meryl bioassays the orchid? lol

Quite slow lately around my parts, about 5 patches that usually are still in swing have shown nothing for a while, but the rain over the last few days brought out some healthy little specimens, already with lots of blue flecking from forcing twigs out of the way.

One area has surpised me, it's in some backstreet parklands with only light grass vegetation (Panic Veldgrass), it's quite exposed, yet on the south western side of a fence, has very thin woodchip substrate, gets next to no organic litter (besides grass biomass generally) and has a 4wheel mower squash the patch relatively regularly and it seems to always have some mature fruit occuring, either drying out or fresh.

[reshroomED]

One area has surpised me, it's in some backstreet parklands with only light grass vegetation (Panic Veldgrass), it's quite exposed, yet on the south western side of a fence, has very thin woodchip substrate, gets next to no organic litter (besides grass biomass generally) and has a 4wheel mower squash the patch relatively regularly and it seems to always have some mature fruit occuring, either drying out or fresh.

I spent abot 3hrs looking at several different spots in the mountains (from gullies to altitude, over quite an area) last week and found zilch. Not real wet, but I'd have thought plenty for some fungal life. A few lbm's and bracket fungi were all I saw.

Stopped for a piss 5k's out of town on the way home and found some next to the toilet-block, on a mowed lawn so there you go.

I've often wondered at the prevelence of subs in wood-chip garden-beds.

Grew up in the Western suburbs of Melbourne, and my first shroom-picking trips (early 80's) were to the Otways, Mt Macedon, and Donnybrook areas. And this was the go for several years.

Don't ever remember seeing a sub on wood-chipped beds back then. I'd become aware of mushrooms through people older than myself taking me hunting, so assume they never saw any close to home either.

I'd come across them while hunting or fishing in the mountains, but never saw any in suburbia.

Were we driving all that way for nothing, or is this a recent adaptation of subs to the advent of wood-chip garden beds (which were no-where near as common then as today)? Or perhaps subs from a locale that suit the general conditions being wide-spread through wood-chip?

I've often noticed some subs like the edge of a man-made clearing, whether pine or native bush , but also that these subs seem different (beefier, darker, less umbonate, often wavy) to their brothers that grow in native bush. Obviously cleared areas will have better air-exchange and less humidity, but I'm wondering more and more about different sub-species.

Anyone here picking shrooms in Western Melbourne back then ('80 -'85)? I'd be keen to hear thoughts on this.

cheers

ed

[huckles]

Yo team,

Totally noo to this all, so please deal with this as fit. I found some yummy looking shrooms in my new backyard in Sydney. Don't worry, I didn't eat them - must check first! Can't find any like shrooms on the net, so now looking for sagely advice from you all.

These fotos are of the end of their lives - i only thought about snapping them too late.

http://static.flickr.com/58/222885993_dc47fafebf.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/77/222885995_03d799d177.jpg?v=0

hey pop up in groups of ~20 under our bulberry tree over a few nights, darken, crack and rot over a few days. They come up very conical, then flatten out, then radially crack along the top, then right through the cap. They have white spots of dust-like something that seem to blow off the tops. the stems, fairly thin, hollowish, don't noticbly bruise blue - i mean, I can sort of see blue, but it might be mold or something else. or the spores. The gills are dark brown with a hint of purple, the spore prints are purple black brown.

any thoughts?

Edited August 25, 2006 by huckles

[PD.]

Looks like Coprinus sp.

not active.

[huckles]

thanks for the reply dae.

Can anyone recommend a book for a field novice? When i go back to Canberra next year I want to get into it!

Edited August 25, 2006 by huckles

[PD.]

There are a few good books out there, one i would recommend is "Mushrooms and toadstools of Australia" by C.J. Shepherd and C.J. Totterdell.

Edited August 26, 2006 by Passive Daemon

[shaman]

i rekon its fair to say the season has well and truely came to a complete halt in melbourne (or atleast the western suburbs)

Not only have there been no actives around for a month (give or take a week or two), at the moment its pretty hard pressed to sight ANY kind of mushroom.

lol feel free to disagree with me or prove me wrong, just my 2c about Melb season.

[apothecary]

Plenty of fungal life down here, just no subs

[Shroom-Aura]

There are a few good books out there, one i would recommend is "Mushrooms and toadstools of Australia" by C.J. Shepherd and C.J. Totterdell.

I second that! It has an awesome photo of subs and is the only australian book to describe Psilocybe cubensis. I also like "A Field Guide to the Fungi of Australia - Tony Young and Kay Smith. University of New South Wales Press. 2005 " although others don't because it doesnt have many pretty photos. But it has decent descriptions and illustrations of 3 active species and heaps of other inactive species. It also has the most up to date state distribution of the actives it lists.

Edited August 31, 2006 by Trich-Aura

[gerbil]

The rain the other day gave me hope...

Found this at a patch that usually fruits very well, yet has performed poorly this year, nice to see a few mature ones...there'd definately be alot more around the rivers.

(NE melb)

[shane6891]

i herd some where that the cube season is cranking cubes in se qld could of been a dream but a mate said he found 80 cubes today in 20 minutes and he said the were not very big.

[apothecary]

Can we start a new thread for cube season, just for the sake of searchability later on!

[spiders]

yeah please do.

[alkatrope]

I think I found my first Panaeolus yesterday!

No blue-ing so dunno if they're cyanescens or not.. Took some pics on my phone if anyone wants to see

[Hyphal]

Always! Chuck em up!

[Oh 'cos?]

Yeah show us, alkatrope.

Well next season, hopefully there will be someone in Sydney who will help me out with some shroom hunting. I'm a noob. If not, then thanks anyway, but you know... lol. I hate looking by myself.

Hmm...

Edited December 27, 2007 by Adrian Psy