Pholiotina cyanopus

General information: Common names: Conocybe à pied bleu Class: Agaricomycetes Familly: Agaricineae Genus: Conocybe Order: Agaricales Phylum: Basidiomycota Usable: Hallucinogenic

Hat

• Size: 0.3-1.2(2.4) cm in diameter
• Shape: Conical to sub-hemispherical, then broadly convex, sometimes oblong
• Texture: Dry to moist, smooth to slightly wrinkled toward the disc with age
• Color: Ocher, dark brown to reddish cinnamon brown, fading to tan when dry
• Margin: Often with fibrillose velar remnants towards the edge, translucent-streaked when moist

Blades

• Attachment: Adnate to adnexate
• Size: Moderately broad, close to spaced apart
• Color: Cinnamon brown to dull rusty brown, fringed, initially whitish and darkening with age

Foot

• Size: 2-4 x 0.1-0.15 cm, equal, often broader at the base
• Texture: Brittle, smooth
• Color: Whitish at first, then grayish to brownish towards the apex, often showing greenish-blue to greenish-gray hues near the base, fading to grayish with age
• Characteristics: Lacks an annulus

Spore Color

• Cinnamon brown

Basidia

• Shape: Clavate, with 4 sterigmata
• Size: 15-20 x 7-8.5 µm

Spores

• Shape: Broadly ellipsoid in front view, unequal in profile view
• Surface: Smooth, fairly thickened wall with a small germ pore
• Color: Dull rusty brown in alkalis
• Size: 6.5-7.5(9) x 4-5 µm

Cheilocystidia

• Shape: Fusiform-ventrue, swollen towards the base with a cylindrical and attenuated neck, obtuse towards the apex, rarely subcapitate
• Size: (20)25-30(40) x 7.5-11 µm, with neck up to 15 µm in length and apex up to 4-5 µm in diameter

Pleurocystidia

• Absent

Caulocystidia

• Location: Present mainly towards the apex
• Shape: Cylindrical-lageniform

Pileipellis

• Type: Hymenoderm
• Structure: Formed of a layer of piriform cells, tangled with pileocystidia

Pileocystidia

• Abundance: Numerous, similar to cheilocystidia

Stipitipellis

• Structure: Formed of cylindrical hyphae, hyaline

Velar Elements

• Structure: Formed of filamentous hyphae, ± hyaline

Loops

• Absent

Mode of Growth

• Scattered

Ecology

• Saprotrophic
• Habitat: Grows on clay soil in grassy areas, lawns, fields, or among mosses

Edibility

• Moderately to strongly hallucinogenic
• Contains: Psilocin, psilocybin, and baeocystin

Remarks

This conocybe is characterized by its blue-green foot at the base, especially with age, and the size of its spores.
Conocybe tenera, similar, has much larger spores, 10-12 x 5.5-7 µm. Conocybe smithii differs in having a more delicately umbrate cap, subcapitate cheilocystidia, slightly longer spores, and grows mostly in mossy environments or forest swamps. Like the other species of grassy environments, Psilocybe semilanceata, P. mexicana and P. tampanensis, Pholiotina cyanopus can give a sclerotium, a form of latent which gives it some protection against fires and other natural disasters.

References

MycoMatch (MatchMaker) Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest
Version 2.4.1. 2023.