Psilocybe magica Svrcek, Ceska Mykologie 43: 82. 1989

macroscopy:

Pileus 5-20 mm, conico-convex or convex with or without conical umbo, expanding with age to plano-convex, with or without umbo, with deflexed to straight, sometimes crenate margin, hygrophanous, deeply translucently striate, red-brown (5 YR 4-6/6, centre 2.5 YR 3.3; K&W 9F8, 7F8, 6F8, 14F5), paler towards margin and between striae (5 YR 5-6/8, 2.5 YR 5/8), pallescent on drying, slightly viscid, but without separable pellicle. Veil present in form of white appendiculate flocks near and along margin, sometimes disappearing with age. Lamellae, L = 16-28, l = 1-3(-5), distant to moderately crowded, broadly adnate-subdecurrent, brown to red-brown (7.5 YR 6-5/4, 5 YR 4/3; 6E7-8, finally 7/8F8) finally sometimes with greyish-purple tinge, with fimbriate, more or less concolorous or paler, pinkish white edge. Stipe 20-35 x 1-2 mm, cylindrical, often flexuous, equal or with broadened, almost bulbous base, orange-yellow to yellow-brown at apex (7.5 YR 6/8, 6-5/6), downwards red-brown, much darker towards base (5 YR 4-3/6-3, 2.5 YR 3/3), almost glabrous or with a few scattered paler fibrils. Context thin, concolorous with surface. Smell and taste indistinct. Spore print deep red-brown (2.5 YR 2.5/2).

microscopy:

Spores (6.0-)7.0-8.5 x 4.0-6.5(-7.0) x 4.0-5.5) µm, average 6.9-8.4 x 4.7-6.4 x 4.2-4.9 µm, Qf = 1.3-1.7, Qfav = 1.4-1.55; Qs = 1.4-2.2, Qsav = 1.5-1.9, hardly to distinctly flattened, ellipsoid to oblong, rarely somewhat amygdaliform in side-view, ellipsoid or somewhat ovoid or mitriform in frontal view, with moderately thick, grey-brown walls, with fairly large, apical germ pore. Basidia 17-25(-30) x 4.0-8.0 µm, 4-spored, clamped. Lamella edge sterile, rarely heterogeneous. Cheilocystidia 20-50 x 5 .5-10 µm, lageniform to tibiiform with rounded, 2.0-5.0 wide neck, thin-walled. Pleurocystidia a absent. Hymenophoral trama regular to subregular, made up of short, inflated elements, 18-85 x 5.0-18 µm, with incrusted walls. Pileipellis a cutis to ixocutis, up to 80 µm thick, made up of 1.5-5.0 µm, wide, cylindrical hyphae; subpellis well-developed, made up of short, moderately to strongly inflated elements, 23-95 x 9.0-21 µm, with yellow-brown, incrusted walls, gradually passing into pileitrama. Stipitipellis a cutis of narrow, cylindrical hyphae, 2.0-4.0 µm wide. Clamp-connections present

ecology:

saprotrophic, on dead parts of mosses (a.o. Campylium stillatum, Campylopus retroflexus, grasses, and sedges in meadows with Juncus effusus, on rather moist fertile soil and also found in tussocks of Carex elata.

distribution:

Wide-spread in Europe: recorded from Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, The Netherlands, and the Czech Republic.

comment: