Ask Erowid

Ask a Question


Find an answer:

View By Category

Search Ask Erowid
Search Vaults


Enter a keyword in the search field above to look up a question or answer on a specific topic.

Off-Site Psychoactive Question Resources
  Ask Dr Shulgin

Resources at Erowid
  Plants & Drugs
  Freedom & Law
  Mind & Spirit
  Arts & Sciences
  Library / Bookstore
  What's New
  About Erowid
  .
How do you identify mushrooms?
Q: I live on the south coast of Australia and we have wide varieties of mushrooms, some hallucinogenic. I was wondering what is the best way to identify safe mushrooms to use for obvious reasons? Ive been told magick mushies look like this and that, and then i looked in your picture vault and was surprised to see similar mushrooms that we get through our rainforests. So is it safe to pick mushrooms from your pictures or do you need further knowlege or someone experienced?

A: It is not safe to try to identify mushrooms from a picture alone. Some very deadly mushrooms can look virtually identical to delicious food mushrooms. If you are interested in learning how to identify mushrooms, you need to find a local mycological society or a trained mycologist, and you need to spend some time as an apprentice before trying to hunt mushrooms on your own. It would probably be wise not to call up asking them to teach you how to find psychoactive shrooms, though. Mycology is a very interesting field. There are many very delicious and health beneficial mushrooms, and of course there are the psychedelic mushrooms, but if you don't know what you're doing, you could easily kill yourself. The only way to definitively identify a mushroom is to both know the appearance and take a spore print and use a magnifying glass to compare the results to multiple reliable field guides.

Asked By : PP
Answered By : murple
Published Date : 1 / 7 / 2001
Last Edited Date : 1 / 7 / 2001
Question ID : 1645

Categories: [ Mushrooms (Psilocybin) ]



Ask Erowid v1.7 - Jul, 2005

(content and html © the Vaults of Erowid. Please ask permission before publicly reproducing.)