Jochen Gartz - Magic Mushrooms Around the ... - preterhuman.net

maps showing distribution patterns for the
European Panaeolus species.
Taxonomic Confusion
On May 25, 1986, in the village of
Heringsdorf on the Eastern German Sea Coast, I
found 147 fruiting bodies of Panaeolus
subbalteatus in all stages of development. They
were growing on a compost heap that originally
contained horse manure. Unlike the Psilocybe
species, Panaeolus mushrooms can be found
anytime from spring throughout the fall season.
The differentiation of Panaeolus species is
further hindered because they are very
hygrophanous, with caps whose colors can
change from whitish to grey, or from reddish
brown to a very dark black-brown. Older
mushrooms on the compost heap had caps that
had cracked with age, and margins that had
curved upwards and were covered with spore
dust. Only two mushrooms had blue-stained
caps, and the stems did not change color in
reaction to pressure. In the American
literature Panaeolus subbalteatus has been labeled
"Panaeolus variabilis", because some of the stems
imitate the appearances of other mushroom
species and thereby contribute to the taxonomic
confusion. The species is also known to
grow in the immediate vicinity of Panaeolus
foenisecii (Pers.:Fr.) Kiihn., creating more
opportunities for mistakes, especially if the
mushrooms are not closely inspected. The caps of
Panaeolus subbalteatus become flat as the
mushrooms age, a feature that is taxonomically
significant.
The cap's long, watery marginal zone
gives the mushroom its name. Only the
psilocybin-producing species will be discussed in
more detail below. Results from recent
comprehensive analyses clearly show that
Panaeolus subbalteatus is the most important
psychoactive European species among the genus
Panaeolus. Ola'h's world monograph about the
genus Panaeolus was published in the 1960s and
has caused much confusion, since he described a
number of species as "latent psilocybinproducers".
He proposed, for example, that
Panaeolus foenisecii occasionally produces
psilocybin. All Panaeolus species share one
characteristic that differentiates them from all
other species discussed in this book: They
produce 5-substituted indole compounds, such as
serotonin and its biochemical precursor, 5hydroxytryptophan.
Serotonin is a compound widely found
in animals and humans. It acts as a neurotransmitter
in the brain, even though not all of serotonin's
effects have been entirely understood. It should be
noted, however, that both serotonin and 5-hydroxytryptophan
are completely inactive when taken
orally. When performing paper or thin-layer
chromatographies, both of these substances can
easily be mistaken for psilocin. It is remarkable that
Ola'h's results contradict current findings, in that his
data frequently showed the existence of psilocin in
Panaeolus species!
More recent studies of carefully identified
mushroom material from the European Panaeolus
species did not document substantial amounts of
psilocin in these samples. Also, "chemical races"
associated with specific species could not be
established. I believe that almost all accidental
intoxications can be traced to ingestion of
Panaeolus subbalteatus, with the possible exception
of one case caused by an imported tropical species.
Very little is said in the literature about Panaeolus
retirugis, its area of distribution and chemical
composition. The intoxication case from Bremen,
however, indicates that this species is psychoactive
(see Figure 28). In 1985, I found two fruiting bodies
in a pasture, whose dried weight contained 0.03
- 0.05 % psilocybin, as well as serotonin. All of the
mushrooms' features, such as wrinkled, fleshcolored
caps, corresponded to descriptions of Panaeolus
retirugis.
Based on his analyses, Stijve concluded
that the dried fruiting bodies of Panaeolus
subbalteatus contain about 0.1 % psilocybin,
regardless of location, as well as a tiny amount of
baeocystin. Still, accounts of intoxications with
consistently potent psychoactive effects would seem
to provide evidence against such small amounts of
alkaloids in Panaeolus subbalteatus. Indeed, dried
mushrooms from the Pacific Northwest region of
the United States have been reported to contain
0.16% - 0.65% psilocybin. Moreover, the first
analyses of the species in North America (1959) led
to the isolation of a water-soluble indole compound
which is now generally thought to be baeocystin.
My own analyses of mycelia and 19 fruiting bodies
from the Heringsdorf location indicated levels of