More of Psilocybe Serbica
Since I am intensively going everywhere with my camera, I've been able to capture some very special moments indeed. In the last one month or a bit longer, I'm also intensively hunting this unique Eastern European magic mushroom - Psilocybe serbica - about which I already made an article here: https://peakd.com/hive-166168/@careassaktart/psilocybe-serbica. But I feel that this special little brown fungi deserves much more & that is why I'm shooting it often & also decided to make one more blog post about it.
The specimen on this photo are really tiny. The largest is maybe 2-3 cm high & its cap is maybe 0,5 cm wide. So, the smallest one it's probably 1 cm high & its cap might be only 0,2 cm wide. These are mine approximate estimates.
Such small specimen, like on the shot above, I do not pick cause there might be an error in correct identification cause of the great similarity with many different LBMs (little brown mushrooms) especially with one life threatening & deadly poisonous - Galerina marginata. This galerina is known across the Northern hemisphere as the main cause of death between the unexperienced magic mushroom hunters who hasty & lightly pick too young specimen of LBM convincing themselves that they are picking psilocybe. The cases of that mostly occur in USA. I have never heard of any in Europe. I guess the Europeans are a bit more respectful towards Mother Nature & trying to be more sure of what specie of mushroom are they picking. But I also might be wrong in generalization - sorry if I am!
A bit larger specimen, approx. 3,5 - 4,5 cm high with a cap 3 cm wide.
As you can see on larger & older specimen, they are changing the shapes & the colors of stem & cap. The cap becomes less orange & more pale-yellowish-brown. It has the stripes all around the edge of the cap. In the middle it shows mild nipple-looking-a-like bulge which sometimes is not even visible. You can also see that the color of the stem is changed too - it is not grayish-white like with the youngest specimen.
On this shot the biggest specimen has again completely different shape of the cap & the color - it lost the nipple & also the yellow-brown color.
On these 3rd & 4th shots it is visible how distinctive look the same species can have, depending of the conditions in which they are growing & stadium of growth. The cap of the largest specimen is deformed cause of the dry branch obstacle it hit while growing vertically in height. The branch roughly scratched & changed the shape of the cap of the largest specimen. It made it almost loose the nipple completely & new colors appeared: beige in the middle with the leftovers of the yellow-brown, white-gray edge & some darker brown in between. The stems on these specimen are dark brown & very dark brown even almost completely black - which is totally not an usual characteristic!
There are 4 different stage development specimen on this shot. Also the micro environment is shown.
Till now e could see who diverse in shape & color psilocybe serbica can become. So, I would never take it as a joke & picking easily just like that but take a great precaution like with every mushroom specie - & pick it only when you are 120 % sure of the correct identification!
On this bird perspective you can again see 4 different specimen but all showing the correct characteristics of shape & color. So, mostly at first sight, one can be sure what is seeing & pick them with high level of confidence.
I realized now that I didn't make any shot of gills which I will definitely do in my next hunt! This time I will just explain in words: gills are almost white, but I would say whitish-beige, not too dense & touching the stem but not too attached. They also change the density & the color & their level of attachment to the stem depending of the stage of growth.
Another mid-stage developed specimen. It has a small hole in the middle of the nipple - another occasional characteristic.
The upper macros I made with Nikon Z6 & Sigma 105 mm DG Macro HSM & for the self-portrait below I used the older Nikon D800 with Nikon AF Nikkor 35-70 mm lens.
The following photos I made with my Samsung phone camera & I'm posting them here just to show you some examples of very old specimen & also gills of some specimen, as well as the frozen condition & specimen in which you can also find them still!
The above specimen that I'm holding in hand are the oldest usable ones that I found, moment before the rotting stage. You can see how deformed they can be that I needed a 2nd opinion to be sure of the correct determination. You can also see the color of the gills - beige to light brown.
These 4 were completely frozen when I picked them turning into green & bluish tones with very darken stems cause of the purple-brown spores dropping down & sticking to the stem. Still the gills are almost white but not white, more beige with pale green-bluish bruising. You can see the snow has fallen but they still grow.
The environment where I keep finding them looks like this:
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