Psilocybin mushroom poisonings

Some Psilocybe mushroom eaters, in an effort to avoid LSD and PCP tainted varieties sold on the street, try to pick their own mushrooms. In theory, this should be easy to do. Psilocybe (species containing psilocybin) mushrooms grow naturally around the world and in the United States particularly in the Pacific Northwest and southeastern states. Mushroom hunters often seek out cow pastures, riverbanks, pine forests, and wood chips in search of over 90 known species of Psilocybe mushrooms. The problem, though, is that it is very difficult to tell the difference between Psilocybe and other poisonous mushrooms. Psilocybe and poisonous look-alikes can grow side by side. 

Psilocybin mushrooms from tKe genera Psilocybe and Panaeolus are fairly safe to identify, in that there are no known poisonous species... 

Common Name(s) Mower s Mushroom Poison Psilocybin... 

For unknown reasons, Kreisel described all Pluteus species as "non-poisonous" in his 1987 handbook of mushrooms, despite the fact that psilocybin (0.35 % of dried mushrooms) had already been discovered in samples of this species in 1981 (North America) and 1984 (Norway). The alkaloid was also found in mushrooms from Holland, Finland, Sweden and France. The latter tests, however, were limited to very few fruiting bodies in each case. 

As early as 1909, Murrill described "Inocybe infida", a mushroom with "narcotic" effects from New York. In 1911, Ford named "Inocybe infelix" as a species that also caused strange effects, without inducing s miptoms of muscarine poisoning. These descriptions immediately bring to mind the psilocybin-producing fibreheads, even though visionary experiences are not expressly mentioned. 

---