First liberty caps! (2023)

[downwardsfromzero]

The very rarest I've found is the sporeless albino but sadly I didn't manage to photograph it. That one was literally one in a million. One thing I've never seen is the pouch form of libs which is known to occur in Scotland and mirrors the Weraroa pouch fungus of New Zealand.

Downwardsfromzero, I've think I might found a sporeless albino of P. semilanceata: It fits all the boxes of the typical characteristics (blueish stem, pointed papilla, pale and stiff stem...) but this adult specimen doesn't have the typical dark purple gills. Therefore I might suspect it being a sporeless one as I already have seen a lot of smaller lib caps who are younger and already have the dark gills. I might take it to the lab to have a view on a microscope of it...

Yes that is a sporeless lib there - nice find :thumb_up: Next up the albino - that one (well, both really) someone should clone.

Jagube - the lack of spores causes the apparent shading reversal. You might notice on dry caps that the papilla is often darker than the periphery of the cap. In normal libs, this contrast is cancelled out when wet by the dark spores showing through the hygrophanous cap.

All the same, be very cautious to check all the other features to avoid confusion with various lookalikes!

Further note: try taking a spore print to check whether it's colourless spores, sporeless, or just an exceedingly weak spore producer. Microscopy will be interesting - are basidia present, do they produce spores and if they do, do these spores mature properly? There are a number of possibilities.

Oh, and I found another couple of tiny specimens the other day, demonstrating once again the broad-opening cap of this dainty form.

 

[dragonrider]

Yes, i've seen several with open caps as well. And i know for sure they wheren't look alikes because i got good effects from them.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Yes, even a single tiny shroom makes for a nice microdose - I ate it and did a productive afternoon's brush clearing and was very focussed and productive with my chainsaw Naturally, the chainsaw stays in the tool cupboard if macrodosing is going on - then I get my axe out (JOKE!)

 

[the red squirrel]

These are the promised microscopic pictures of the sporeless liberty cap I found mentioned somewhere above. Unfortunately, I can only share the pictures of the dissection of the cap via a stereomicroscope because I can't find the ones of the hyphae made with a compound microscope...(guess the self-transforming machine elves in my hard drive has something to do with it. Although, there wasn't anything much to see anyway but I managed to find 4 typical P. semilanceata oblong spores...)

I like how you can see the blueing reaction up close on the tissues. Enjoy!

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Lovely pics! Yes, that blueing is what I considered to be an important sign towards confirming the identity of this kind of rare specimen. Great that you got to see the (few) spores as an additional aid to identification. I look forward to an update when the elves have finished doing whatever they were doing and put the pictures back :lol:

I've made minimal progress on my montage project apart from actually locating the pictures (maybe one up on you there, heheh ) since other stuff needed doing, although that did involve finding an OK little microscope with a digital camera for a great price the other day so at some point I'll be able to contribute a few new pics of all sorts of fun things

 

[the red squirrel]

As the elves are still playing part on me you're indeed one step ahead of me, downwardsfromzero . Having a personal microscope will open up a complete new world so that's very nice to hear!

I'm still intrigued by the albino species you mentioned earlier. I've think I tracked down the paper about the rare Scottish liberty cap variant; is it the one you were talking about?

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Yes, that's the one I was thinking of there in the paper that you found.

I've had microscopes on and off for years but my last proper one broke and then I only had a kids digital microscope which was half OK but I never managed to get it working again after switching to a different computer OS. The 'new' second hand one has a higher resolution camera and although I've still not managed to get live images up on my computer screen, it does record to a memory card which is readable via USB connection. I'd maybe better save the nerdy whining about proprietary drivers for a different thread.

 

[the red squirrel]

I can totally relate to the maddening problems with different digital microscope drivers, endless program errors, scaling errors, broken connection cables...

Regarding the Scottish variant, do you know if there are any pictures of it out there I can't find one readily available? (However, I haven't attempted a deep dive into the cellars of the mycological internet forums yet)

Fun note; I was cleaning my fresh specimens before drying & found a lot of larvae between the gills. I never noticed it before in liberty caps as I've read in the literature that psilocybin works somewhat as an insect repellent

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Be assured, if you leave them to their own devices those little blighters will devour practically the whole mushroom save for the gelatinous pellicle. Time is of the essence as ever with wild mushrooms.

 

[dragonrider]

Be assured, if you leave them to their own devices those little blighters will devour practically the whole mushroom save for the gelatinous pellicle. Time is of the essence as ever with wild mushrooms.

This happened to me once. They ate a whole jar of shrooms.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

I'm quite accustomed to seeing the dried-out corpses of maggots alongside the liberty caps on my desicator mesh. I've even wondered about saving them up to check for activity. That would have taken years, though - and a bottle of tincture that, long ago, I once made with some slightly over-maggoty specimens proved to be too edgy and chaotic, so having that at the back of my mind served as an additional disincentive.