>>844241>How do you make 100% sure you have identified a mushroom?>Maybe if I had a microscope I could make sure by looking at the spores, but other than that I am going completely blind here.As this
>>844396 guy explains psilocybe cyanescens and related wood loving psliocybe have a distinctive smell like leaves or wood, like the substrate they usually grow on but stronger.
I was very anxious my first few times picking but after a while the differences between psilocybe woodlovers like cyanescens or subaeruginosa and galerina are distinctive.
The psilocybe stem should be fairly strong and woody with some bendy give, whereas galerina stems tend to be frailer and break when you attempt to bend them.
Color can vary due to phenotype variations and growing conditions so it isn't a sure sign of species but taking a spore print will determine whether it is a Galerina or not.
The Galerina has a rusty brown spore print like pic related- a psilocybe cyanescens or subaeruginosa will produce a dark chocolate brown with a purplish oil slick tinge.
Psilocybes will also produce blue bruising when the stipe or cap is pinched. Pinch the mushroom and instantly or after a few minutes they will produce distinctive blue bruising (on the cap it may appear aqua).
So if you do the pinch test and a spore print you should be fairly certain whether the subject is of the psilocybe genus and if cyanescens is the most common species and it was found in an environment with a lot of wood/leaf litter it is likely that sp.
To further bullet proof your identification upload images on sites such as mushroomobserver dot org, or shroomery dot org's hunting and ID forum.
If you are really enthusiastic you can microscopically examine the spores but mistaking cyanescens for a taxonomically near identical wood loving psilocybe sp. such as subaeruginosa (An Aussie native which has naturalized in some parts of the US),doesn't matter.
