E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
Features include 1) small size, 2) a hygrophanous, ochraceous brown to olive brown cap that is viscid, peelable, and striate, 3) flesh that bruises blue when injured, 4) adnexed gills that are clay-colored becoming violaceous brown with whitish edges, 5) a whitish stem that bruises blue where injured, 6) a fibrillose ring zone on the stem, 7) a farinaceous odor and taste, 8) growth on dung, primarily in grassy areas, 9) a dark violaceous brown spore deposit, and 10) microscopic characters. Guzman(4) gives this species as a synonym of Psilocybe sierrae Singer Beih. Nova Hedwigia 29: 240. 1969.

Guzman(1) examined collections from BC, OR, and Chile. There is a collection from WA at the University of Washington.

Cap:
0.5-2cm across, conic to bell-shaped, expanding when old to broadly bell-shaped but not sharply umbonate; hygrophanous, ochraceous brown to olive brown, fading in drying to straw color; smooth, viscid when moist from separable gelatinous pellicle, and translucent-striate near margin, (Stamets), (0.5)0.8-1.2(2)cm across, conic to bell-shaped or subumbonate [somewhat umbonate] to slightly expanded; "hygrophanous, ochraceous brown or brownish olivaceous, fading to straw color, bluing when touched or injured"; viscid, bald, translucent-striate when moist, (Guzman(1))

Flesh:
whitish bruising bluish, in cap and stem, (Stamets), pliant in cap and stem; whitish in cap and stem, bruising bluish where cut or injured, (Guzman(1))

Gills:
adnexed; clay color becoming violaceous brown with whitish edges, (Stamets); adnexed; clay-colored at first, becoming violaceous brown, edges sometimes pallid, (Guzman(1))

Stem:
2.5-4.5cm x 0.2-0.3cm, equal or slightly widened towards base; "white to dingy white or pallid, bruising bluish where injured", (Stamets), 2.5-4.5cm x 0.2-0.3cm, equal but with subbulbous [somewhat bulbous] base, hollow; "white to whitish, staining slightly blue where touched", (Guzman(1))

Veil:
partial veil well-developed, cortinate, usually leaving a fibrillose ring zone that can approach a true ring in the upper area of the stem, (Stamets), well developed as white-silky arachnoid [cobwebby] or fibrillose layer, forming a fibrillose zone or subannulus that may disappear or be somewhat permanent, (Guzman(1))

Odor:
farinaceous when crushed young (Guzman(1))

Taste:
farinaceous when young (Guzman(1))

Microscopic spores:
spores 10-14 x 6.6-7.7 microns, subelliptic [more or less elliptic] both in face and side view; basidia 4-spored, pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia 20-28 x 5-6.6 microns, fusoid-ventricose or more frequently lageniform [gourd-shaped] with an extended neck 1-2 microns wide, (Stamets), spores (9.9)11-12(13.7) x 6.6-7.7 x 6-6.6 microns, subelliptic in face view, somewhat irregular subelliptic in side view, thick-walled (1 micron), ochraceous brown, broad apical germ pore; basidia 4-spored, 22-33 x 8.8-11 microns, clavate to ventricose, colorless; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia abundant, forming a sterile band, 20-28 x 5-6.6 microns, colorless, ventricose-fusoid, some subpedicellate, more commonly lageniform [gourd-like] with a long and flexuous [wavy] neck 1-2 microns wide; clamp connections present, (Guzman(1))

Spore deposit:
dark violaceous brown (Stamets, Guzman(1))