Summary:
Features include 1) a hygrophanous, viscid, peelable, striate cap that is deep chestnut brown to olive brown when young but fades to yellow-brown or yellowish buff, 2) a thin, membranous ring on a yellowish to brown stem, 3) a weak blueing reaction that when present may affect the cap, ring or stem, 4) a farinaceous odor and taste, and 5) a dark purplish grayish brown spore deposit.

Cap:
1-4(5)cm across, bluntly conic becoming convex to broadly umbonate, flat, or with an uplifted margin when old; deep olive-brown to chestnut brown when young, often fading as it ages or dries to dingy yellow-brown or yellowish buff, margin often tinged greenish; smooth, viscid when moist, margin striate when moist, (Arora), (0.5)1-2(3.5)cm across, conic to convex, then bell-shaped or subumbonate [somewhat umbonate], frequently subpapillate [somewhat papillate], becoming shallowly depressed at disc or flat when old; "hygrophanous, dark reddish brown or orangish brown to olivaceous brown or fulvous brown", fading to ochraceous or pale ocher, staining slightly greenish blue when injured or when old; viscid to lubricous with separable cuticle, bald, but with traces of silky white veil at margin when young, even to slightly translucent-striate at margin when moist, (Guzman), 1.5-5cm across, obtusely conic soon expanding to convex to broadly convex-umbonate to nearly flat, with margin finally uplifted, wavy and often eroded; hygrophanous, dark chestnut brown, lighter toward margin which is often olive greenish, fading to a more yellowish brown to pale yellow; margin translucent-striate halfway to disc when moist, (Stamets)

Flesh:
thin; pallid to brownish, bruises blue weakly if at all, (Arora), "translucent to somewhat pliant" in cap, tough in stem; whitish or light to dark yellowish brown, "staining blue when cut mainly in young stages", (Guzman), relatively thin; watery brown or nearly colored as cap, (Stamets)

Gills:
adnate or adnexed, close or fairly well-spaced; "pallid soon becoming grayish or brownish", (Arora), "adnate or sinuate or adnexed"; "yellowish brown at first, soon violet brown or chocolate brown to blackish violet, uniform or somewhat mottled, with whitish edges", (Guzman), adnate to adnexed, close to subdistant, moderately broad, with 3 tiers of subgills; pallid, "soon becoming more brownish and eventually very dark brown", (Stamets)

Stem:
2-6cm x 0.15-0.4cm, equal or wider at either end, often curved; "yellowish to brown or sometimes with darker or bluish stains", especially in lower part; "not viscid, often with mycelial threads at base", (Arora), (2)3.5-6.5(7.5)cm x (0.15)0.2-0.4(0.6)cm, equal or slightly widened at base, flexuous [wavy], stuffed to hollow; "white or whitish silky to ochraceous or brownish fibrillose", easily staining blue-green where injured or touched, mainly on base, which is finally blackish; dry, bald to slightly fibrillose, twisted-striate at times, (Guzman), 3-6cm x 0.2-0.4cm, more or less equal, "slightly enlarged at top and often curved, twisted and inflated at base", stuffed with fibrous whitish pith; dingy yellow to pale yellowish brown; dry, covered with pallid appressed fibrils below ring, smooth above ring; stem often with rhizomorphs protruding about base, (Stamets)

Veil:
membranous but thin, "forming a fragile ring or fibrillose zone" on stem that is often blue or bluish green but may darken from spores or disappear, (Arora), white, thin membrane forming a ring, fragile and persistent, rarely absent, thin, white, smooth on lower surface but slightly striate on upper surface, with subgelatinous margin, easily blueing along margin, (Guzman), partial veil thinly membranous, typically streaked bluish, leaving fragile membranous ring which soon becomes a fairly persistent annular zone darkened by spores, (Stamets)

Odor:
strongly farinaceous when young, but weak when mature, (Guzman)

Taste:
strongly farinaceous when young, but weak when mature, (Guzman)

Microscopic spores:
spores 8-12 x 6-8 microns, elliptic, smooth; chrysocystidia absent on gills, (Arora), spores (8.2)9.3-10.4(13.5) x 6-7.1(7.7) x 5.5-6.6 microns, subrhomboid [somewhat rhomboid] in face view, subelliptic [somewhat elliptic] in side view, thick-walled, dingy yellow brown, broad germ pore producing truncate apex, apiculus visible; basidia 4-spored, 16.5-33 x 5.5-8.8 microns, subcylindric, with median region slightly constricted, colorless, sterigmata 3-4.4 microns long; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia abundant, forming a sterile band, 22-30 x 4.4-6.6 microns, colorless, "lageniform, fusiform-lanceolate or fusoid-ampullaceous, with an elongate and flexuous neck", 1-2.2 microns wide, sometimes irregularly branched; clamp connections present on all the hyphae, (Guzman), spores (8)9-10.5(13.5) x 5.5-7.5 microns, subrhomboid in face view, subelliptic in side view; basidia 4-spored, pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia 22-30 x 4.4-6.6 microns, "lageniform, fusoid-ampullaceous, or fusiform-lanceolate with an elongated and flexuous neck" 1-2.2 microns wide, (Stamets)

Spore deposit:
dark purple brown (Arora), "deep violaceous to dark violaceous purple", (Guzman), dark purplish grayish brown, (Stamets)

Notes:
Guzman(1) examined collections from BC, WA, OR, and CA.

EDIBILITY

weakly to moderately active, 0-0.36% psilocybin, 0-0.12% psilocin, 0.02% baeocystin; beware of the poisonous Galerina autumnalis which has similar shape though different color, (Stamets)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Psilocybe pugetensis Harris