Summary:
Features include 1) a hygrophanous, viscid, umbonate, peelable, striate cap that is chestnut to ochraceous brown to caramel and bruises strongly blue, 2) a cap margin that is not wavy, 3) sinuate to adnate, close, mottled gills that are brown becoming purplish black with white edges and often bruising dark blue, 4) a silky white stem that becomes brown from the base, 5) basal mycelium that bruises blue, 6) a bitter taste, 7) tufted to gregarious fruiting on deciduous wood chips or in sandy soil with woody debris, and 8) a dark purplish black spore deposit. The description is derived from Stamets(1) except where noted. There is some question whether this is truly distinct from Psilocybe cyanescens.

Cap:
3-10cm across, conic to convex, flattening with a pronounced persistent low umbo, margin not wavy, but sometimes irregular and eroded at maturity, slightly incurved at first, soon downcurved; hygrophanous, "chestnut to ochraceous brown to caramel", "often becoming pitted with dark blue or bluish black zones", "fading to dingy brown in drying", margin often pale azure blue tinted, cap becoming strongly bruising when damaged; smooth, viscid, separable cap skin, margin translucent-striate

Flesh:
at center 0.3-0.6cm; whitish to pallid brown, "rapidly bruising blue, then darkening to deep caerulean blue and eventually indigo-black"

Gills:
sinuate to adnate, ascending, close, with 2 tiers of subgills; brown, mottled, stained indigo-black were injured, edges whitish

Stem:
9-20cm x 0.3-0.6cm, hollow when mature, silky white, dingy brown from the base or when old, composed of "twisted, cartilaginous, silky white fibrous tissue", base "thickening downwards, often curved, and characterized by coarse white aerial tufts of mycelium, often with azure tones combining with dense, thick, silky white rhizomorphs that tenaciously attach to wood chips or dead grass, strongly bruising bluish upon disturbance"

Veil:
white, cortinate, often leaving a superior fibrillose annular zone

Odor:
none to slightly farinaceous

Taste:
extremely bitter

Microscopic spores:
spores 12-13.5 x 6.5-8 microns, elliptic, [presumably smooth, with germ pore]; basidia 4-spored, pleurocystidia abundant, 23-55 x 9-10 microns, "fusoid-ventricose, tapering to a narrow but short neck, bluntly papillate", cheilocystidia nearly identical, 23-28 x 6.5-8 microns

Spore deposit:
dark purplish brown to purplish black

Notes:
Psilocybe azurescens has been found along the northern OR coast near Astoria, and it has been reported in BC in nature from a cultured origin. There are collections from BC and ID at the University of British Columbia. Outdoor beds have also been established in CA, NM, OH, WI, VT, and Germany, (Stamets).

EDIBILITY

potent hallucinogen, 1.78% psilocybin, 0.38% psilocin, 0.35% baeocystin