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

Summary:
A notable feature is the mycelium at the base of the stem that bruises bluish due to its hallucinogenic content. Other features include a brown, non-viscid cap with a striate margin when moist; adnexed, close, rusty brown gills with white edges; a fragile, whitish stem that becomes grayish or brownish at top; growth in grass or moss; and rusty a brown spore deposit. Pholiotina cyanopus Pholiotina cyanopus (G.F. Atk.) Singer was the current name in MycoBank, accessed October 25, 2018, but not in Species Fungorum, accessed the same day.

Conocybe cyanopus has been reported from BC, WA, CO, and temperate regions of central and northern Europe (Finland, Germany, Norway), (Stamets(1)).

Cap:
0.7-1.2(2.5)cm across, nearly hemispheric to convex, expanding to broadly convex when old; reddish cinnamon brown to dark brown; moist when wet, soon dry, smooth overall to slightly wrinkled toward the disc when old, margin translucent striate when moist, (Stamets), (0.3)0.5-1.5cm, bluntly conical to expanded-umbonate; cinnamon brown, paler when faded; bald, when fresh translucent-striate, the partial veil sometimes leaving trace cortinate remnants along the cap margin, soon disappearing, (Smith), 0.3-2.5cm across, ocher to brown; sulcate [grooved], (Moser), with faint, filamentous veil fragments, (Watling)

Flesh:
whitish to colorless in cap, slightly darker and finally rusty tawny in stem base, (Watling), very thin and fragile (Smith)

Gills:
adnexed, close, moderately broad; dull rusty brown; with edge fringed whitish, (Stamets), adnate, not crowded; dull rust, edge white; edge floccose, (Watling), close to subdistant, becoming broad; finally cinnamon-tawny, (Smith)

Stem:
2-4cm x 0.1-0.14cm, equal to slightly curved at base, fragile, breaking easily; whitish at first, becoming grayish or brownish at top, and often adorned with whitish mycelium at base that bruises bluish, (Stamets), 2-4cm x 0.1-0.15cm, equal or very slightly swollen; white becoming grayish or streaked with cinnamon at top on handling or when old, dark bluish green at base, fading to greenish gray; silky-striate throughout, (Watling), 1-3cm x 0.1-0.2cm, with slight bulb; whitish toward top, greenish to bluish near base (Smith)

Veil:
thin cortinate, sometimes leaving traces along cap margin, soon disappearing, no ring, (Stamets)

Odor:
not distinctive (Watling)

Taste:
not distinctive (Watling)

Microscopic spores:
spores 6.5-7.5(8.5) x 4.5-5 microns; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia 20-25 x 7.5-11 microns, (Stamets), spores 6.5-7.5(8.5) x 4.5-5 microns, broadly elliptic in face view, inequilateral in side view, dull rust in alkali, fairly thick-walled, germ pore small but distinct; basidia 4-spored, 15-20 x 7-8.5 microns, clavate; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia swollen at base with cylindric, tapered neck and obtuse apex, rarely subcapitate, 20-25 x 7.5-10 microns, neck up to 15 microns long, apex 4-5 microns wide; cap cuticle "a hymeniform layer of pyriform cells" intermixed with numerous cystidia similar to cheilocystidia; stem cuticle of colorless, cylindric hyphae supporting cylindric-lageniform cystidia especially at stem apex; veil of filamentous, +/- colorless hyphae; clamp connections not seen, (Watling), spores 7-9 x 4-4.5 microns; cheilocystidia (20)30-40 microns long, fusoid-ventricose, apex +/- obtuse, (Smith)

Spore deposit:
rusty brown (Stamets)