Psilocybe coprophila(Bull.: Fr.) Kumm., Führ. Pilzk.: 71. 1871.

macroscopy:

Pileus 2-25 mm, hemispherical to convex with involute then deflexed, sometimes slightly crenate margin, slightly expanding with age, hygrophanous, when moist dark reddish brown to dark yellow-brown (Mu. 5 YR 3/4, 10 YR 5/6 when young, then 7.5 YR 4/4), translucently striate at margin to half the radius, viscid, pallescent on drying to yellow-brown (7.5 YR 5-6/6, 10 YR 7/4-6), with minute whitish velar patches on surface and adhering to margin, glabrescent. Lamellae, L = 6-15, l = 1-3, distant, adnate, sometimes slightly emarginate with small decurrent tooth, segmentiform to subventricose, 2.5-5 mm broad, pale brown then reddish or dark purplish brown (10 YR 3/2) with whitish, fimbriate edge. Stipe 6-40 x 0.2-2(-3) mm, cylindrical, sometimes broadened towards base, brown, paler than pileus, dark brown at base, pruinose at apex, innately whitish fibrillose, subtomentose or subsquamulose below. Context grey-brown to reddish brown in pileus, yellow-brown in stipe, pallescent on drying. Smell and taste indistinct or slightly farinaceous. Spore print very dark red-brown, almost black (10 YR 2.5/1).

microscopy:

Spores 10.0-14.0 x 6.0-9.0 x 5.5-8.5 µm, Q = 1.2-1.7, Qav = 1.4-1.5, hexagonal in frontal view, Q = 1.6-1.8, Qav = 1.7, ellipsoid to oblong in side-view, with rather thick, brown walls, with large germ pore. Basidia 17-29 x 5.0-9.0 µm, 4-spored. Lamella edge sterile. Cheilocystidia 20-40 x 4.0-8.0 µm, lageniform with 2.0-5.0 µm wide neck. Pleurocystidia absent. Pileipellis a thin ixocutis of narrow, cylindrical, 2.0-5.0 µm wide hyphae. Pigment membranal and minutely incrusting in subpellis and upper pileitrama. Stipitipellis a cutis with transitions to an irregular trichoderm, made up of loosely arranged, cylindrical, 3.0-9.0 µm wide hyphae. Caulocystidia 11-32 x 3.0-7.5 µm, subcylindrical to irregularly clavate, in groups at apex of stipe. Clamp-connections abundant.

ecology:

Saprotrophic, gregarious on dung of herbivores (cow, horse, sheep, rabbit, hare, etc.) in grasslands and open grazed woodland.

distribution:

common. May-Nov. Cosmopolitan.

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