Identifying magic mushrooms

[Favero]

I am very new to the picking and subsequent use of shrooms, but have read some very positive stuff about taking them, including liberty caps. It was Liberty caps I have been looking for as I'm a keen hiker anyway. Could anyone confirm if the attached photographs showing the shrooms are liberty caps? They were picked on Sunday 9^th October on fields where livestock are and were on south facing open land in the middle of tufts of grass about 10 inches in depth

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[Solipsis]

We don't allow ID threads on the forum I'm afraid, but I can tell you that I don't think those are P. Semilanceata (aka Liberty Caps). These aren't pointy at all, and look quite a bit too large (although it's hard to determine the scale). No idea about other Psilocybe species, but you don't pick mushrooms hoping randomly that they're Psilocybes. Also, not all Psilocybes are so potent that you ought to eat them.

I wonder if those ^ are more like Agrocybe Pediades, but I can't really tell.

You have a lot more researching to do before you go eating picked mushrooms, since what matters most is not that psilocin has interesting effects but that you can correctly identify a mushroom species and can afford to eat lookalikes of it. Maybe buy a mushroom hunting guide and learn to identify various sorts of mushrooms (perhaps you come to like hunting edibles as well). Over time you should get feel for differing characteristics and maybe use determination keys.
I hunt mushrooms but primarily edibles right now... I only pick and eat ones that I can safely identify, meaning that I'm confident about which ones they are and very importantly - like I said - I checked which lookalikes there are and that they are not toxic.

Sorry to rain on your parade..

Use the Shroomery forum to help you with getting a knack for this and also to help identify your pics since they allow that in their Hunting subforum I think.

 

[Motifoner]

Lol i swear people dont read any of the rules the amount of ID threads i see come up is exponential

 

[Solipsis]

I don't think mushroom hunters really count as real trespassers because there isn't that much of a direct threat to the safety of people or the integrity of the forum like with sourcing. AFAIK there aren't exponentially more people sourcing etc, the serious shit.. if you actually do see those come up, report it.
So such mistakes as asking for ID are imo easily forgiven.

 

[Kaden_Nite]

You can download the books 'Psilocybin mushrooms of the world' and 'Magic Mushrooms of Australia and New Zealand' from Erowid. Both are very good guides for finding and identifying mushrooms. Also, I believe the website shroomery still do mushroom ID though I haven't been on in a while.

Those are not psilocybin mushrooms, don't eat them..

Read up, go with someone who knows what to look for and don't eat anything unless you are 100% certain.

 

[Solipsis]

Aren't haymakers supposed to have a little striated margins, I'm not seeing that anywhere in the pic. Also no discoloration gradient on the cap apart from that super soggy one... I guess that color isn't necessarily always there, but still suspicious that none of them have it.

For the record, I wouldn't go on blabbing about mushroom IDing if it wasn't a negative ID like it is. Making a positive ID isn't quite as safe.

Bruising blue is not a reliable way to ID as anything other than an adjunct I think... maybe some of them like cyans / azures. But non-psychedelic ones can also bruise as long as there are indoles present.

 

[The Hypnotist]

They are not, full stop.

 

[Tranced]

They definitely aren't liberty caps.

I can see how they look vaguely similar to criteria you've probably been researching online; (brown gills, yellow-brown, wet caps, with a step in colour on the bottom). But they just aren't. As you research them more, you will find that this a lookalike species, or multiple species at least, which you commonly come across whilst searching for wild libs in this country. I'd suggest remembering these as amongst the ones to avoid. There are only a few lookalikes to spot in the right habitat before you get the jackpot in this country.

I'm aware that this thread is completely against the rules, so I can't say much mure than to point you to shroomery.org, which is where most of us probably developed the knowledge to identify psychedelic mushrooms.