Psilocybin Mushrooms of The United States: A Visual Guide

I was very pleased to see this book which no one had informed me had been published. For years I had been preparing a book on Magic Mushrooms of the United States, so I can put that one on the shelf. I find this to be a great guide for many of the species it represents in this book. For the most part, it is 99% right on, with only some minor discrepancies regarding some of the species it features. The photographs are pretty much accurate However, there are more species in the USA in the Psilocybe family that were not in this guide. And some species mentioned that are not psychoactive. Some of those non-active species noted in this book were first reported by me in three separate papers, and I thank the author for noting my academic papers on the species I am now mentioning here./ Panaeolus antillarum, was the result of a false Positive by my colleague, the late dr. Tjakko Stijve, the former head chemist at Nestles in Vevey, Suisse. Paul Stamets noted in his field guide this species as active because of a paper by Mark D. Merlin and I on active species in Hawaiian species. The other three non-active species are Panaeolus semiovatus, Panaeolus foenisecii, and Panaeolus Papilionaceus. The latter two species are not psychoactive and in the late 1950s and early 1960s, a few academic papers had reported them as psilocybian fungi. Those papers were the results of what are known as false positives. And Panaeolus bisporus which I reported from Hawaii was found in a newly sodded lawn. Similar habitat reports of P. bisporus noted a large lawn at a church in Bern, Switzerland years ago which had been fertilized from a garden supply firm in the Mediterranean, and similar lawn collections that were reported in southern California, and in Oregon. Gyorgy Miklos Ola'h who did the taxonomy on C. bisporus said they grow in grass and not directly in manure. Re: Panaeolus cyanescens, most likely originated in India and Southeast Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam)., as well as in Burma, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Regarding how many active and/or non-active species of Psilocybe exists, I must note that since my 2000 paper appeared in print, authored by me, Guzman and Gartz, the amount of the total list of the known Psilocybe species had decreased due to DNA and RNA results of the synonyms of known species, and also all non active Psilocybe species in the past 5-8 years have been renamed into Deconica, Psathyrella, Stropharia, Hypholoma and Naematoloma genera. Re: Psilocybe baeocystis in the NE USA, DNA has shown those to also be Psilocybe aztecorum, Re: Psilocybe caerulescens, Guzman collected it in Mississippi years ago. Also, Psilocybe weilii which was not described in your guide turned out to be Psilocybe caerulescens. The species of P. weilii was the result of errors in the taxonomy of the species. Regarding the widespread distribution of the liberty cap Psilocybe semilanceata, it is also common in Northern New York along the US border with Ontario, Canada. And finally, It was Galerina autumnalis not Galerina marginata that poisoned three teenagers in 1981. Two boys 17, and a i6 year old girl became sick after picking mushrooms that they had assumed were Psilocybe stuntzii. They had conveyed to the Dr. who treated them that they looked just like the ones they had eaten the year before. On Dec 27, the girl passed away. I had met with the family in the early 1980s and had also spoken to one of the doctors who treated her. This happened on Whidbey Island, The Girl's name was Debra Amann. The three did not go to the hospital when they first became sick because they were afraid that the police would charge them for the possessing the mushrooms. I put this here because I have no way of knowing this author or the fact that I might would probably never be able to meet her. I commend her work on this book and I highly recommend it to all who love these mushrooms. It is a well presented field guide to many of the the species of active mushrooms found within the united States. John W, Allen. The photograph is my picture from the U of Washington campus in Seattle. Psilocybe allenii Borovicka, Rockefeller and P. G. Warner.

This book is very informative and clear to understand. It also contains many photos, making it a little easier to get a better idea of what you potentially found.

Might be a good find for someone who doesn't live in Wisconsin.Firstly, the book is much smaller than I expected, as in very few pages. Out of the limited amount of magic mushrooms listed and displayed in the book only 5 can be found in my home state. At that rate, I could've just found the information for these 5 mushrooms online and referenced my phone in the field.Secondly, for some reason I expected this to be a "field guide". It definitely is not. It does not have a ruler on the cover or back cover for easy reference in the field to see if the mushroom you've found matches the mushroom in the book.Third, I know it wasn't listed as spiral-bound, but I feel this book would be far more beneficial as a spiral-bound edition. Especially if you're using it out in the wild. Trying to keep the book open with one hand, without a table, and compare to what you see in front of you is just stupid and the binding will quickly get broken at this rate.Honestly just want my money back😔