Summary:
Features include 1) small size, 2) a hygrophanous, yellowish to chestnut brown to reddish brown, viscid, peelable, striate cap, 3) adnate, broad gills that are whitish becoming dark brownish to dark purplish brown, 4) a stem covered at first with fine whitish fibrils, 5) growth in grassy areas, in well-manured areas, and in decayed conifer substrata, at various times of year, 6) a dark purplish brown spore deposit, and 7) microscopic characters. Psilocybe physaloides is considered a nomen dubium and the Guzman(1) concept of P. physaloides appears to represent P. subviscida, including some previous records from NB (Guzman(4)).

Gills:
adnate, subdistant, broad; whitish at first, soon becoming dark brownish, (Stamets), adnate to slightly decurrent; "whitish, clay-umber or dingy, then deep umber, violaceous umber or chocolate brown", edge white at first; edge flocculose at first, (Guzman(1)), subadnexed or sinuate; reddish brown, edges the same color; edges serrate or fimbriate [fringed], (Guzman(4))

Stem:
2-4cm x 0.1-0.2cm, equal to narrowing downwards near base; covered at first with fine whitish veil fibrils, (Stamets), 1.8-3.6cm x 0.1-0.2cm, equal or slightly wider at base, hollow; brownish toward the base, whitish or pale in upper part; covered by whitish or gray veil fibrils, then more or less smooth or slightly silky-striate, at top pruinose, (Guzman(1)), 2-5cm x 0.1-0.25cm, "cylindrical, subbulbous, flexuous, hollow"; reddish brown like the cap, blackish at base; covered thinly by brownish gray fibrils; white cordons of mycelium common at base, (Guzman(4))

Veil:
partial veil thin to obscure, leaving a fleeting ring zone of fibrils usually darkened by spores when present, (Stamets), poorly developed, ring not formed, but when young leaving white or whitish ring zone "and scattered floccose patches below this, but both soon disappearing leaving fine appressed silky fibrils", (Guzman(1)); poorly developed (Guzman(4))

Odor:
absent to slightly fungus-like (Guzman(1))

Taste:
absent to slightly fungus-like (Guzman(1))

Microscopic spores:
spores 6-8.5 x 4-5.4 microns; basidia 4-spored; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia 20-50 x 5-8 microns, ventricose, then lageniform [gourd-shaped], with a flexuous [wavy] neck 2-3.5 microns wide, (Stamets), spores (6)6.6-8(8.5) x 4.8-5.4 x 3.8-4.5 microns, elliptic to somewhat oval, or very slightly lens-shaped, both in face and side views, thin-walled (up to 0.5 microns thick), brownish yellow, with narrow but flat germ pore; basidia 4-spored, rarely 6-spored, 15-28(32) x 6-8 microns, colorless, ventricose; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia abundant, 20-40(50) x 5-9 microns, colorless, "lageniform, but ventricose to ellipsoid at first, then with long and flexuous neck" 2-3.5 microns wide; clamp connections present, (Guzman(1)), spores 6.5-7 x 4.5-5 x 4-5 microns, "subrhomboid or suboval in face-view, subellipsoid in side-view", thin-walled, wall up to 0.5 microns thick, with broad germ pore; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia 22.5-34.5 x 5-7 microns, sublageniform; cap cuticle subgelatinous, 10-20 microns thick with colorless hyphae 1-3 microns wide, (Guzman(4)), spores 7-8 x 4-4.5(5) microns, cheilocystidia 30-40 x 6-7 microns or 20-26 x 10-12 microns, (Smith(1948) for type as quoted in Guzman(4)), spores (6)6.5-7.5(8) x 4.5-5(5.5) microns, cheilocystidia 27-44 x 6-8 microns or 23-45 x 3.5-10 microns, (Noordeloos(2001) for type, as quoted in Guzman(4)), [spores presumably smooth]

Spore deposit:
dark purplish brown (Stamets)

Notes:
It has been found in WA, OR, MI, and NY, (Stamets), and CA (Desjardin). Guzman(1) examined collections from NY and the United Kingdom, and noted reports from MI, BC, and Australia. Paul Kroeger found it near Meager Creek on the mainland in BC, (pers. comm.), and his Vancouver Island BC collection was described in Guzman(4). There is a collection at the University of British Columbia from that university''s Vancouver campus, by J.E. Davidson in 1927. Records from NB are mentioned above.

EDIBILITY

not active (Stamets)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Psilocybe subviscida (Peck) Kauffman Agar.