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 Psilocybe aucklandiae
BiostatusPresent in region - Origin uncertain
Images (click to enlarge) | 
Caption: fruitbody
Owner: J.A. Cooper | 
Caption: Dried type specimen
Owner: Herb PDD | 
Owner: J.A. Cooper | 
Owner: J.A. Cooper |
Article: Johnston, P.R.; Buchanan, P.K. (1995). The genus Psilocybe (Agaricales) in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 33(3): 379-388 (http://www.rsnz.org/publish/abstracts.php).
Description: Pileus 15-55 mm diam., broad-conic, expanding to broadly umbonate to more or less flattened, with edges becoming slightly upturned and often splitting; dry; lacking veil remnants; dark brown to yellow-brown, striate to edge, hygrophanous, drying to pale yellow-brown to straw-coloured; staining greenish-blue with damage or age; flesh white. Gills adnate, greyish yellow-brown with conspicuous narrow pale margin. Stipe 35-100 x 1.5-5 mm, cylindric, finely pruinose toward top, silky-fibrillose toward base, whitish; staining greenish-blue with damage; flesh brownish. Veil cortinoid, poorly developed, disappearing as caps mature. Basidia 20-28 x 4.5-6 µm, cylindric, 4-spored, clamped. Cheilocystidia 15-32 x 4-8 µm, ventricose-rostrate, with long, tapering, flexuous and sometimes bifurcate neck up to 12µm long, hyaline, thin-walled. Pleurocystidia 13-19 x 4.5-6 µm, scattered, similar in shape to cheilocystidia but with shorter neck, up to 4.5 µm long. Spores (6.5-)7-9.5 x 4-5.5 x 3.5-4.5 µm, average 8.1 x 4.9 x 4.3 µm, in face view ovate, in side view elliptic-ovate; wall brown, smooth, about 0.5 µm thick, with apical pore.
Habitat: On soil and litter beneath Leptospermum and Dacrydium, and in pine plantations.
Distribution: New Zealand: Auckland.
Notes: This species has been found only in the Auckland region, where it appears to be quite common on soil and litter in native forest and in pine plantations. As noted by Guzman et al. (1991), P. aucklandii is very similar to P. zapotecorum R. Heim emend. Guzman, which is common in Mexico and known from South America. The two species are barely distinguishable microscopically, although comparison with published descriptions (Guzman 1983) show that P. aucklandii may have slightly narrower pleurocystidia and slightly wider spores. Published illustrations of P. zapotecorum (Guzman 1983) appear to show that P. aucklandii is a less robust species.
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