what do magic mushrooms look like??

hey ive jsut moved from city to the bush at my mums and goign crazzy but i think i think she might have magic mushrooms growing in her propty jsut wondering what they look like

 

Go with an experienced guide. Learn from them; learn from online sources like the shroomery. only after you can identify every marker necessary to discriminate between types should you pick wild mushies alone and eat them.

 

I was wondering the exact same thing.

 

bad shrooms can killu---get a guide they have purple stems is all i know--im a city boy and all my shrooms came prepackaged--be very very careful---dont just take them

 

no, they don't.

if its cubensis and the caps are fully opened and they've recently dropped their spores, there may be a bit of purplish dust on the stipe, but the stipe itself is white and hollow, unless bruised

people on the internet shouldn't be trusted to give you advice on how to identify mushrooms, and there are dozens of species of psychedelic mushrooms.

also lots of poisonous species.

cubensis is pretty easy to identify more or less, but i still would recommend learning it yourself over asking someone on a message board to do it for you.

for the record, in the wild cubes generally grow in hot, humid climates on or near equine or bovine dung. they generally fruit after heavy rains.

 

whatever im no expert but my shrooms were purple as shit on the stem --not a little bit of dust

 

post some pics so we can help determine that.

 

i know this from growing mushrooms myself for a couple years. the spores are purple, close to black, and spores dropped and stuck to the stipe will cause them to appear to have a dark purple color.

other than that, when bruised they turn anywhere from bluegreen to blue leaning towards purple, but i've never seen them bruise straight up purple, and even then it wouldn't be the entirety of the stipe, just splotching.


(not my photo)

 

in the upper right hand corner of this picture, also not my own, you can see the stip of a mushroom larger than the others that looks purple, and the caps of the mushrooms nearby also are discolored. this is a result of the mushroom coming to full maturity and dropping it's spores in an enclosed space (indoor cultivation) where the wind will not disperse them as in nature. in this instance, it can stick to the mushrooms pretty well and even resemble a mold growing on them if the spores are plentiful enough (several mushrooms in the container dropping spores) and won't really come off unless you rub it off.

 

the only things I can tell you is check for bruising on the stem and take a spore print. then see if an experienced mycologist can help you out.

 

I just don't trust wild mushrooms. There's no way they haven't had an encounter with some sort of bacteria growing in the same substrate...and there's no telling what sort of toxins the bacteria the fungus ate might have passed on to the shroom.

Grow your own, or get them from a grower who knows the importance of sterile method.

 

this concern is really so minor (in terms of importance/likelihood) that its not even worth mentioning.

bacterial contamination in home cultivation will kill off the mycelium, and in the field you have plenty of other factors preventing cohabitation such as UV rays

 

Hm...well, I feel the fact that the fungus is growing in cow shit is worth mentioning...A fungus is what a fungus eats, and so am I, so I won't.

Why take the chance? Growing is not hard and it's fun to do.

 

fungi is good at absorbing the materials from which it grows, but there is no "shit" in the mushroom

besides, with the diet that cows keep its not the most bacteria-friendly dung in the world. human feces would be far worse.

but if you're so worried about things growing from dung, what do you do about vegetables? a lot of small farms use manure for fertilizer, if i'm not mistaken.

it's nutrient rich :cheers2:

anyway, the bulk of what cows eat is grass and hay and grains, nothing really wierd in it....all the stuff that comes out the other end is just what the cow can't use - but it's great for growing stuff.

once a particular segment of substrate is colonized by cubensis, it pretty much is the only thing living in it. in contaminated cakes you can see where the one fungus starts and the other stops, and in the case of bacterial contamination you usually notice once the cake is already partially contaminated, and you can tell a distinct line where it stops growing...this is where it is running into the bacteria.

people talk a lot about it being dangerous to eat mushrooms from contaminated cakes. it truly isn't the best idea, but for what it's worth i've done it with no issues on more than one occasion, but these were mold contams. granted, i'm also not allergic to penicilin, and if someone is then this is a risk NOT worth taking.

as for grain based substrates, you should be fine in virtually every case. the nutritive content is not much different than that of beer, which is another grain based product. in my homebrewing books, i've more than once read that there are no known pathogens which will grow in your wort if it spoils. you want the beer to come out tasting good, but if it gets contaminated it may be gross but not dangerous.

 

Well, alright, Nesta. I suppose that's pretty convincing.

 

hahah. i feel nesta is possibly the most knowledgeable shroomer on these forums. i'd take his advice over most anyones on these magic fungi, so natural shrooms seem OK to me.. now as for tuffman, try getting some pictures and posting them up here. while you may also want to get an identification guide, many people here could steer you in the right direction and give you a rough idea what they are

 

agree with all that...but I heard and discovered for my self.. uke: That rats and slugs can taint naturally grown mushies and cause serious gastric distress. But only a couple times in my life. Just cut the stem at the base and don't let the shrooms touch the ground or poop.

 

So you do hit up those hawaii mushies, kine? I wanted to when I was out there forever ago, but was way too busy to get the time to go sneaking onto pastures I'm unfamiliar with.