Panaeolus fimicola, also known as Panaeolus ater is a widespread but seldom identified "little brown mushroom" which sometimes contains small amounts of the hallucinogen psilocybin

Psilocybin

Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic prodrug, with mind-altering effects similar to those of LSD and mescaline, after it is converted to psilocin. The effects can include altered thinking processes, perceptual distortions, an altered sense of time, and spiritual experiences, as well as...

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Description

• Cap: (1)1.5— 3.5(4) cm, Campanulate then convex to plane, obtuse, dingy gray to blackish, often with reddish or hazel tones, hygrophanous, pallid grey to yellowish when dry, smooth, with a narrow brown marginal band, slightly striate at the margin when moist. Flesh thin and grayish.
• Gills: Adnate, close to crowded, at first gray-olivacous, becoming mottled and darkening to black with age, edges remaining whitish.
• Spores: Blackish gray.
• Stipe: (4)6 — 8(10) cm x 1 — 2(3) mm, equal, slender, slightly enlarging at the base, hollow, fragile, dingy white to clay, becoming brownish towards the base in age, smooth, white-pruinose at the apex, obsoletely slightly silky-striate, ring absent. Flesh is dirty ochraceous-buff; fragile.
• Taste: Not distinctive.
• Odor: Not distinctive.
• Microscopic features: Spores 10.8 — 14.2 X 6.9—9.5, elipsiod or lemon shaped, basidia 4 spored. Gill edge cystidia fusiform, typically with long necks, gill face cystidia absent.

Habitat and formation

Panaeolus fimicola can be found growing solitary to scattered in soil or dung, fertilized lawns and other grassy places, late spring to mid-fall. Widespread across the Americas, as well as Europe and Africa; common.

External links

• Panaeolus fimicola photo
• Panaeolus fimicola cheilocystidia
• Panaeolus fimicola spores