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

CHAPTER 7.3
THE AUSTRALIAN MYCOLFORA ATTRACTS ATTENTION
In 1934 J. Cleland publicized the existence
of 12 mushroom species of the genus Psilocybe in
South Australia. Up to that time, there had been no
accounts about psychotropic intoxications from the
fifth continent.
Cleland was probably the most renowned
Australian mycologist of the 20th century. As early
as 1927 he had already described a new species
named Psilocybe subaeruginosa. This mushroom
grows in New South Wales, Victoria and South
Australia and turns bluish-green with age or in
response to pressure. During the 1940s several
accounts surfaced which detailed a series of
"hysterical psychoses" caused by Panaeolus ovatus
Cke. & Mass. (also see Chapter 3.3).
In 1958, Aberdeen and Jones described the
geographic distribution of Psilocybe cubensis
across the southeastern valleys of Queensland and
New South Wales. They speculated that this was
the mushroom responsible for the cases of
intoxication, not the Panaeolus species. They
proposed this hypothesis, because the mushrooms
in question were thought to have been
champignons, who resemble the fleshy Psilocybe
species much more closely than any of the
Panaeolus species. In addition, the Psilocybe
species had been described as being much more
common in the area. Under wet climate conditions,
the Psilocybe species can be found growing in
abundance on cattle dung, especially along the
sunshine coast of Queensland, in the open valleys
around Brisbane and in areas that used to be rain
forests, but have now been transformed into
pastures. It is quite likely that the species was
brought into the country by its early settlers. It
wasn't until the early 20th century that land in
Australia's subtropical and tropical regions was
converted into pastures.
Today, it is generally thought that the
mysterious Panaeolus ovatus species was, in
reality, Panaeolus cyanescens.
It wasn't until the early 1970s that the latter
species was identified. Soon after, the Panaeolus
species were recognized as being very common
throughout Northern and Southern
Australia.
Despite the widespread geographic
distribution of psychotropic species in Australia,
there were only a few efforts to publish
information about their chemical composition. In
1970, Picker and Rickards reported the isolation
of 0.45 % of psilocybin from dried fruiting bodies
of Psilocybe subaeruginosa, but failed to find any
psilocin in that sample. Later on, other authors
reported only about one-tenth of this amount of
psilocybin, a number that I believe to be too low,
considering reports about the mushrooms' strong
psychoactive effects.
Psilocybin was also found in Australian
samples of Psilocybe cubensis (see Figure 2, p.
5), while Panaeolus cyanescens was reported to
contain psilocybin, along with even higher levels
of psilocin and serotonin as well.
Starting in the late 1960s, popular,
widespread usage of psychotropic mushrooms
began to catch on in Australia. At the same time,
these accounts of mushroom use were the only
comprehensive reports that originated in a country
other than Mexico.
In the summer of 1969, a 4,000-hectareregion
near the coast of Queensland gained
notoriety because of its Psilocybe cubensis crop
that grew there after the rainy season. Interested
collectors flocked to the area in droves. Media
reports at the time gave the impression that the
mushrooms were an entirely new discovery,
completely disregarding Central American
traditions. Psilocybe cubensis conquered the black
market, where the mushrooms were sold for about
U.S.$1 per fruiting body. In the wake of an
above-average rainy season, the species fruited so
abundantly that special transportation companies
were founded for delivery of the mushrooms to
Australia's large cities.
However, even here the mushrooms did
not grow in heaven: the epidemic subsided
somewhat, and the usage of psychotropic
mushrooms became endemic across all of
Australia. On May 8, 1971, the governor of the
conservative state of Queensland prohibited