Hi there

Shroom season is here yay! I love this time year!

So many nasty green and white amanitas about .... We found a few new good spots for liberty caps, but the lack of rain in September and minimal rain in October has lead to a lower overall output this year, so far at least. We have until early November before the first frosts come and end the season...

On this little trip we found quite a few, which was split between me and my friend, here are mine





We found tons and tons of imposters, they look like mycena epipterygia, easy to miss identify when in with a bunch of liberty caps, especially wet young liberty caps.







We are going again on friday, hopefully we should find some more then

Peace

someone msg'd me on here asking for information about picking liberty caps so I thought I would share most of what I said in a reply to him so it may help anyone else looking for these glorious shrooms

........


Their favorite habitat is grass lands, ideally pasture lands, they don't like fertilized fields or fields that have a lot of traffic on the field, nor do they like fields which are mowed / cut often. They like to pop up when its wet, so if its been dry for a while and the ground is dry then its not worth looking that much as you probably wont find any but if you have some heavy rain, 2-3 days after the heavy rain you should see them come up.
They fruit more later in the season, so early season you will see less BUT they fruit more at higher altitude earlier.

So if you find a good field, and its at higher altitude 400-600 m above sea level, then you are likely to find more shrooms there early in the season, than you would at lower altitude.

The season in the uk, which should be pretty similar in most of western europe, is from early September till the first frosts in November, in the uk in my area the first frosts are in november, so i advise looking up when your first frosts are in the area that you live in.

there are also lots of other mushrooms that look like liberty caps, and sometimes you can pick the wrong ones quite easily.

Distinct features of liberty caps are, the nipple on the tip of the mushroom is pointed, the mushroom head is quite long and the stem is usually light grey with slight brown to white, they spore print black to purple black and they have a gooey coating on the cap when wet. They will also bruise blue or greeny blue.

Some liberty cap pictures below :





TIPS when hunting : be patient, take your time, if you find one, stop and look really carefully as there are likely to be more in the immediate area, tap the shrooms heads a few times before you pick them to spread spores for next year. don't give up if you don't find any, and most important, if you find a good spot, don't tell anyone who you cannot completely trust as they will more than likely raid your spot.

Also if you see any of these, Panaeolus subbalteatus


Pick em, as they are also psychoactive

I hope this helps
Peace

Another tip, don’t yank libs out of the gound like has been done in the pictures above. Get a pair of nail scissors or something to avoid disturbing the mycellium.


In my foraging expeditions I have found that, contrary to common belief, they are rather common on well-maintaind grassed areas. An added benefit of searching these areas is that they are far easier to spot in short grass.

Hi DLB

yes you are very right about cutting them on the stem and not pulling them out of the ground so the mycelium web isn't damaged.

hrm I havnt found that many on parks and school grounds, but maybe thats just my bad luck, pastureland has been the most successful for me, but if you are in a city with parks and well maintained grass areas are you only possible sources then why not scour them for liberty caps.

But if you are in a city i would probably focus on finding cyans on the grounds of public buildings where they have used wood chip for mulch, statmens said the biggest flush of cyans he ever found was outside a court in their mulched beds.

Peace

I am not in a city, in fact I am in the depths of the countryside in an area with plentiful pastureland, however 100% of my harvest this year has come from heavily managed areas. I long believed what people say – that if it is not pasture-type grassland then it does not happen.

After talking with a few people who have had good results, then going out hunting myself I found this to be far from the truth and hunting to be far easier than in longer grass.

The growth of liberty caps varies from place to place so your mileage may vary, but it is a good environment to hunt.

* Update *

Firstly, this should of been put on here on Saturday, this is when I took the pics, so its a kinda retrospective update.

I figured why not go to a local woods to see if I can find some cyans or other active species that I know of. But sadly I saw no actives, I think that all mushrooms are really beautiful so i took a load of photos to share, so for anyone who appreciates fungi here are the pics of the shrooms I came across.



The 4 above and the one below are of interest but I havnt spent to much time trying to identify them, there are hundred's or thousands of these little fellas!









Some big mushrooms above and a mushroom infected with what looks like cobweb.



These little white / grain shrooms above, what look like mycena on the forrest floor, are everywhere, and I mean everywhere, I could pick literally tons of them, does anyone know what they are actually called?










Found the last one on a horse manure pile, I know its not, but it looks like a cube, a smaller one that had fell over stained black spores but no blue bruising, I couldn't id it so I left it be!

unsuccessful searching for cyans etc but I seem some beautiful fungi

Peace

* Update *
20/10/2014

Wow what a day, we are truly blessed!

We started picking by going to a local park with level well maintained grass, after about 30 mins looking, we had found no liberty caps at all. we decided this was not a good spot so we ventured about 20 miles away out away from the local population to some nice country, grazed pasture land, we revisited a field where once a few where found, but this time after 8 solid days of rain. .... .wow, just wow, there where literally thousands in this field, we should of stayed and picked more (them all if I had my way) but we where chased out of the field by 2 bulls, they literaly ran over to us.... that was the sign to go imho, there where also quite a few horse riders about in 2 adjacent fields. So we left to not cause alarm nor bring attention to our new spot etc...

With ref to that field... to be continued!

In the hour-ish we where in that field, we picked a decent amount, some huge ones, this was one of the most enjoyable days picking I have had for years...

And all the fiends connecting to it are of similar consistancy .... we will be back, if we are successful then I will update more pics here

Lessons learnt again, don't use a store plastic bag to stoer your shrooms, as they get squished, also pick out the grass as you put them in your basket / box (bag in our case)

I hope you like the pics

Peace

Since I'm here, has anyone had success cultivating semilanceata indoors or wildcrafting them? I admit I haven't looked this up yet, I just figured I would inquire while I was here.

hi there

From what i have read they are near impossible to fruit indoors, the mycelium is cultivatable, but fruiting is almost impossible, however i have read on the shroomery that some have taken sods from the ground and cultivated and fruited liberty caps indoors.

I believe that fruiting is only possible if an unknown pinning trigger is present, which could be anything, E.G. some form of natural soil bacteria / other fungi must be present or it could be a unique combination of the above and a possible change in acid / alkaline soil balance, air pressure etc, who knows... either way its possible to fruit indoors however very difficult.

Peace

From mondays hunt, after removing some none liberty caps and grass the final weights are Wet 295g, Dry 26.5g

There is only 22g left in the picture of the bowl.... ;-)
These are a very strong species ;-)

The erowid.org psilometric scale of comparative potency of Psilocybe mushrooms shows them being the third most potent psilocybin producing mushroom, i agree!

Shroomery Dosage Calculator says you need

0.595g for a level 1 experience
1.011g for a level 2 experience
1.785g for a level 3 experience
2.738g for a level 4 experience
3.690g for a level 5 experience

1.5g was easily a level 3 for me, but everyone is different and potency can vary between individual mushrooms. But i would say that the shroomery dosage calculator is not too far wrong for this species, but I did dry mine using a low setting on a dehydrator, which could of helped prevent further loss of actives... or im becoming more sensitive in my old age.



Peace

* update *
23/10/2014

Hello again

Went back to the same field, I should mention its been raining and blowing really, REALLY, heavy of late, we where on the tail end of hurricane Gonzalo so with the bad weather we didnt know what to expect, well how lucky we have been, truly blessed

All of the outdoor pics

Beautiful pictures!

This year years season is legendary, I have never seen these amounts etheogenic mushrooms in my life. A. pantherina's, P. cyanescens and especially liberty caps.

There is just heaping yields available to anyone, people were saying they found 3.5kg fresh liberty caps half way through September.

Hi there

Thank you for the kind comments

3.5kg fresh, wow! i hope today's yields are anywhere close.

So many mushroom popping up = The mushroom is speaking to humanity, "humans its time to wake up! eat me and awaken!" hehe

Peace

And some shroom pr0n from me =))

2 pics are from my garden. I have found several patches there over the past few years. The garden is heavily managed, during the spring and summer months the area that the photos were taken the grass is mown to the point that it would be described as manicured. It is a shame more of the area around my house is not accessible (too public), but alas I have one small garden to harvest from, which is something like 10x15m.

The dried shrooms are from my garden, as well as a few from down the road in a similarly heavily-maintained area. That is what I have found minus a 1.08g dose I have already brewed up.

The wet shrooms, minus 6 found in a couple of fields on my way into town, were harvested from a 30 minute walk around a 20x100m portion of a field a couple of miles from me. That place is insane. Last year that field was not so prolific, but this year I have to be careful where I step!

Awesome porn

cool garden find! and nice pics, great you have some local spots you can hunt, we have to drive for miles, but worth it, 880g wet so far this year...

not the best day today, but still will not stop looking, One of the many things I don't know, do they flush as heavy late season, and have you ever had any big finds late season?

peace

In the area I lived most of my life there are very few liberty caps. I spent several years searching high and low with zero results. The last 2 years, following a change of location, have been pretty much my history of finding any significant amounts.

This year has been my first year of paying a lot of attention to how they grow. With them in my garden I have been out to see how they are doing almost every day, it’s been really nice!

The best field I have found, a farm field a couple of miles away, has only started cropping in the past 2 weeks. When I went up there a couple of weeks ago there were none that I could find, now they are pretty much everywhere, what I have got from there so far is only from a tiny section of the field and there are a lot more around it too. Some of them are so crazily large, it is really interesting to see the diversity of size and form. I can’t wait to get back down there again!

Superb!

yes I have found a similar situation here, tons of viable fields no mushrooms

go a few miles away, and same type of fields and elivation and tons of mushrooms!

it is indeed wonderful watching them pop up and going back to the same spot and seeing a new flush begging to be picked.

May you have Many happy and colorful times ;-)

Peace

Update *24/10/2014*

As you may of guessed, it has been a very interesting week, so I have been away from my pc, laughing and giggling with friends... my sides hurt! hehe

back to the picking, we went ventured out last Friday, but we didnt find too much, about 85g wet, some pics from Fridays journey





We where not expecting much as we have emptied our local area, but a find is a find, and to me 7.5g dry is still worth the trip out, besides its good exercise

Peace

you all seem to have had a good season, i hope you all enjoy your spoils

my spots have not turned up any little fellas this year im holding out hope for a very late flourish this weekend, fingers crossed

WHY AM I SO LAZY!!!!

i missed it last year the year before i picked a bunch and forgot about em when camping and they all turned and this year i keep forgetting!

whats peoples view on the effects of lib caps over cubensis?