Background on Psilocybe subaeruginosa
Our 'flying saucer' mushroom in Australia, Psilocybe subaeruginosa, was described in 1927 by John Burton Cleland. The specimens studied by Cleland were collected from grass or decaying wood in national parks of South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales (there is a link to JB's original description at this site). Presumably JB didn't know this was a hallucinogenic mushroom at the time, and the properties of psilocybin were not published by Hoffman until 1958. Other (non-Australian) mycologists considered there was more biodiversity and described Psilocybe australiana, P. eucalypta and P. tasmaniana in 1978. Non-Australian mycologists have had tremendous impact on the taxonomy of Psilocybe and the community owes much to the passion of Gaston Guzman and Roy Watling (if you're a Brisbane local I recommend reading Watling's account of gold tops growing in Indooroopilly). The key take home from all that is P. subaeruginosa and related taxa (whether they are more than one species or not) occur in natural areas of Australia, are diverse and were described nearly 100 years ago. A species of Psilocybe, P. cyanescens, has become prolific in the northern hemisphere (Europe and the United States). It grows in wood chips in non-natural areas. It was first described from Kew Botanic Gardens in 1946 (link to the original description here). This mushroom, along with P. cubensis, have become the standards for research on psilocybin and are the basis for many patents on extraction, production and therapeutic use of psilocybin (check out a list of psilocybin patents here). Our hypothesis is that P. subaeruginosa and P. cyanescens are the same species, and that Australia is the likely centre of origin of this taxon. This is based on their years of description (keep in mind that Australian mycology lags behind the northern hemisphere), the habitat of these mushrooms (natural areas of Australia, non-natural areas northern hemisphere) and their near-identical sequences of a barcoding locus of DNA. At some point before 1946, soil or wood chips from Australia may have been transported to Kew or botanic gardens globally, and inadvertently spread P. subaeruginosa, spawning its success as an invasive fungus. Background on Psilocybe cubensis Speaking of prolific mushrooms... gold tops are widespread along the east coast of Australia. They grow out of cow manure as far up as the Daintree (or this is where I've collected them in northern Queensland, they could be even further north). How did they get to Australia and become so successful in this niche? One hypothesis is they are native here, perhaps once dung fungi of Diprotodons that wandered the landscape. This does not seem likely. Gaston Guzman treated P. cubensis as a native of Central America, and he noticed similarities in the morphology of species of Psilocybe in different geographic areas, Our hypothesis is they were introduced to Australia. It will be fascinating to know how many times and whether one introduction is the source of their proliferation along the east coast. Spores of P. cubensis are shared internationally, perhaps more genetic diversity has escaped into Australia from enthusiasts who have released spores. Does all this reasoning make you yearn for answers? Are flying saucer mushrooms endemic to Australia, and just how many species do we have? Are gold tops native to Australia, if not, how many times have they 'escaped'? If mushrooms have been present in Australia longer than humans, is there a chance people have known about their properties here since before 1958 (when Hoffman described psilocybin)? Welcome to my world if you want to know the answers to these questions :)
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Designer Shrooms @ Funky Fungus on 1st July 2023
I started a gig at Funky Fungus as Chief Scientific Officer to make designer shrooms Our research on Psilocybe
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