Kingdom: Fungi
Phylum: Basidiomycota
Class: Agaricomycetes
Order: Agaricales
Family: Hymenogastraceae

Found most prolifically in Northern California, especially the “Bay Area”. Also reported from Oregon and Washington, and found as far south as Los Angeles, CA.

Typically found growing from wood chips in urban environments, especially in landscaped flower beds amongst shade plants.

Psilocybe cyanescens is very similar and can be distinguished by its wavy cap, thinner stem, and thinner cap. Ps. cyanescens is also a darker brown colour overall, especially noticeable on the cap and gills.

“Comparison of P. cyanescens[left] and “Cyanofriscosa” [right]": http://bayimg.com/image/gandiaabn.jpg

Hallucinogen.

This species has been very well documented by amateur mycologists, however it has not been officially described and thus has no scientifically accepted species name at this time.

The nic name “Cyanofriscosa” was coined by a member of the website www.Shroomery.org a couple years ago when other Bay Area hunters began finding them. Other common names have been used to describe this mushroom, such as the “Cyclone Psilocybe”, coined by Paul Stamets due to an instance in which the mycelial pattern of an agar culture looked like a spiral.

There is (a lot of) debate over the species name… Stamets called it Ps. cyanofibrillosa, however, this is not accurate as the microscopic characteristics originally described for that species do not match up with the “Friscosa”, furthermore, Ps. cyanofibrillosa was described as rather impotent, containing modest amounts of psilocin and psilocybin, where as the “Friscosa” is anecdotally comparable in potency to Ps. cyanescens (based on numerous bioassays). It should also be noted that of three people who examined the microscopic characteristics (Workman [SporeWorks], Gaston Guzman, and Peter Werner), all concluded that the microscopic characteristics were either the same as, or with few distinctions (variation in spore size of SOME collections) well within the range of spore size variation for Ps. cyanescens.

It is in the Section Cyanescens and is likely either a new species altogether, or a phenotypic variant or sub-species of Ps. cyanescens.