Psilocybe moseri

Psilocybe moseri Guzmán



Macroscopic feat.:
  • Cap/Pileus: 10-13 mm in diam, subcampanulate to subpapillate, sublubricous, glabrous, even, dark buff to brownish, hygrophanous, very bluish.
  • Gills/Lamellae: Adnate, pale brown to blackish violet, with whitish edges.
  • Stem/Stipe: 75-80 x 2-3 µm, flexible, smooth, silky, whitish to brownish, very bluish, subbulbous and with a thick, irregular long pseudorhiza. Veil absent in ripe specimens.
  • Context: Whitish to rufous brown, subfleshy in the pileus, fibrous in the stipe, staining blue when cut.
  • Odor: And taste strongly farinaceous.

Microscopic feat.:
  • Basidio/Spores: (4-) 5-5.5 (-6.5) x (3-) 3-3.5 x 2.5-3 µm, ellipsoid both in face or side view, thin-walled (no more than 0.5 µm thick), pallid brownish, with a distinct and broad germ pore and an apical short appendage.
  • Basidia: (14.5-) 16-21 x 4-5.5 µm, 4-spored, hyaline, vesiculose, cylindric or subclavate.
  • Pleurocistidia: 12-16 (-17) x (4-) 5-5.5 µm, hyaline, common, vesiculose and mucronate.
  • Cheilocystidia: Of two types, a) (17-) 18.5-34.5 (-37) x (4-) 5.5-7 (-8) µm, irregularly cylindric or subvesiculose, hyaline, common, and b) 12-21.5 (-22.5) x 4-5.5 (-6.5) µm, vesiculose mucronate, hyaline and rare.
  • Subhymenium: Not well differentiated.
  • Trama: Regular, with hyaline 3.5-12 (-16) µm wide hyphae.
  • Epicutis: Formed by a subgelatinized layer, with 1.5-4 µm hyphae in diam.
  • Hypodermium: Subcellular, with 4-16 (-20) µm, wide elements, brownish and thick-walled (up to 1,5 µm). Clamp connections present.

Habitat: Gregarious and caespitose on soil, in a tropical rain forest, 500 m elevation. Known only from the type locality.

Studied material: MEXICO: State of Chiapas, road Ocozocuatla to Apic-Pac (Malpaso Dam), Laguna Bálgica, Sept. 26,1993, Guzmán 30723 (Holotype, XAL).

Discussion: Etymology - this species is named in honor of Dr. Meinhard Moser (Innsbruck).
This species belongs to Sect. Zapotecorum because of its thin-walled spores and for the bluing reaction. The peculiar pleurocystidia, the two types of cheilocystidia, the pseudorrhiza, as well as the smaller spores, separate Psilocybe moseri from all the species considered by Guzmán et al. (1988) in this section. Psilocybe moseri is the species with the smallest spores in the section and the only tropical one (the others are from the subtropical highlands or from coniferous forests), which confirms the observations by Guzmán (1979), that the tropical species of Psilocybe have small spores in comparation with the alpine species. For instance, Psilocybe uxpanapensis Guzmán from the tropics, has spores that are (5-) 5.5-6.5 (-7.5) µm long as compared with Psilocybe aztecorum from alpine regions with 12-14 µm long spores.

source - Bibliotheca Mycologica [159: 105-107]

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