Omnia SanaThis tool aids identification but does not replace an expert. Never eat a wild plant or fungus on the strength of a single feature. When in doubt, throw it out.
Psilocybin mushrooms can be confused with 1 dangerous plant/fungus. Check every distinguishing feature before you trust an identification.
Contains the same liver-destroying amatoxins as the death cap; a few of these small brown mushrooms can kill. Symptoms are deceptively delayed (6–24 h) — vomiting and diarrhoea, apparent recovery, then catastrophic liver failure.
Confusable part: The whole small brown mushroom - cap, ringed stem and gills - especially wood-growing collections. Deadly Galerina grows on the same rotting wood and wood chips as wood-loving Psilocybe.
Deadly Galerina (funeral bell) is the amatoxin mushroom most often mistaken for hallucinogenic Psilocybe and eaten by accident; the two are small brown ringed mushrooms that grow side by side on rotting wood and bark mulch. Galerina carries the same liver-destroying amatoxins as the death cap - by weight sometimes higher - and poisoning is deceptively delayed (6 to 24 hours), with a false recovery before catastrophic liver failure. Both have a ring on the stem and grow on wood, so the ring and the substrate do NOT tell them apart.
How to tell them apart
- Spore-print colour is the only reliable test, and it needs a print taken at home: deadly Galerina drops a RUSTY, cinnamon-brown print; Psilocybe drops a dark purple-brown to blackish-violet print. A rusty-brown print means it is NOT a Psilocybe - do not eat it.
- Psilocybe flesh usually bruises blue-green where handled; deadly Galerina does not. This is only a supporting hint - bluing can be faint or absent and must NEVER override a wrong spore print.
There is no safe field mark. Take a spore print (gills down on white paper or foil, covered, several hours): a rusty or cinnamon-brown print = deadly Galerina or another amatoxin mushroom - do not eat it. Only a dark purple-brown to violet-black print is consistent with Psilocybe. Do not forage small brown wood-growing mushrooms without an expert mycologist and a spore print - a single wrong cap can cause fatal liver failure.
Educational identification aid compiled from the Omnia Sana plant database and cited botanical and toxicological sources. Not medical advice and not a substitute for expert identification.