Psilocybe semilanceata is a species of fungus which produces the psychoactive compounds psilocybin and baeocystin. The mushrooms have a distinctive conical to bell-shaped cap, up to 2. 5 cm in diameter. It is widely distributed in the temperate areas of the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in Europe.
About Psilocybe semilanceata in brief
Psilocybe semilanceata, commonly known as the liberty cap, is a species of fungus which produces the psychoactive compounds psilocybin and baeocystin. The mushrooms have a distinctive conical to bell-shaped cap, up to 2. 5 cm in diameter, with a small nipple-like protrusion on the top. It is widely distributed in the temperate areas of the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in Europe. The mushroom grows in grassland habitats, especially wetter areas. It was the first European species confirmed to contain p silocybin in the 1960s. The possession or sale of p silcybin mushrooms is illegal in many countries. The species was first described by Elias Magnus Fries in his 1838 Epicrisis Systematis Mycologici. Paul Kummer transferred it to Psilocybe in 1871 when he raised many of Fries’s sub-groupings of Agaricus to the level of genus. The name P. semilanceata had historically been accepted as the lectotype by many authors in the period 1938–68. A proposal to conserve the name P silocybe, with P. se Milanceata as the type, was accepted unanimously by the Nomenclature Committee for Fungi in 2009. It takes common name from the Phrygian cap, which resembles its common name; it also shares its name with a species from which it is more or less indistinguishable in appearance. The generic name is derived from the Greek psilos, meaning pileus, which is nowadays the technical name for what is commonly known as the pileus cap.
In the 18th century, pileus caps were placed on Liberty poles, which resemble the stipe of the mushroom, which were then called the Liberty stipe, which was a fungal body of the same name. Panaeolus semilancesatus, named by Jakob Emanuel Lange in both 1936 and 1939 publications, is a synonym. According to the taxonomical database MycoBank, several taxa once considered varieties of P. milanceata are synonymous with the species now known as PSilocybe strictipes. The genus is polyphyletic, with several species in the Strophariaceae, Hymenogastraceae and Hymenosomataceae clades. However, the generally accepted lectotype of the genus as a whole was Psilcybe montana, which is a non-bluing, non-hallucinogenic species. If the non- bluing species were to be segregated, it would have left the hallucinogenic clade without a valid name, and the name would have to be changed again. It would have been difficult to distinguish between the halluc inogenic species and the other two species in this clade, so the name was conserved. P.ilanceatus is the name given to a species that feeds off decaying grass roots, rather than dung.
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This page is based on the article Psilocybe semilanceata published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
