Pholiotina cyanopus
Pholiotina cyanopus is a species of fungus that contains psychoactive compounds including psilocybin and the uncommon aeruginascin. Originally described as Galerula cyanopus by American mycologist George Francis Atkinson in 1918. It was transferred to Conocybe by Robert Kühner in 1935 before being transferred to Pholiotina by Rolf Singer in 1950. A 2013 molecular phylogenetics study found it to belong to a group of species currently assigned to Pholiotina that are more closely related to Galerella nigeriensis than to Pholiotina or Conocybe. It is likely that it will be moved to a different genus in the future, but this has not happened yet.
| Pholiotina cyanopus | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Basidiomycota |
| Class: | Agaricomycetes |
| Order: | Agaricales |
| Family: | Bolbitiaceae |
| Genus: | Pholiotina |
| Species: | P. cyanopus |
| Binomial name | |
| Pholiotina cyanopus | |
| Approximate range of Conocybe cyanopus | |
| Synonyms | |
| |
| Pholiotina cyanopus | |
|---|---|
| Gills on hymenium | |
| Cap is conical or convex | |
| Hymenium is adnate | |
| Stipe is bare | |
| Spore print is brown | |
| Ecology is saprotrophic | |
| Edibility is psychoactive | |
It is very similar to Pholiotina smithii, a species known only from North America, from which it differs slightly in the color of its cap and gills and the width of its cheilocystidia. Some authors have speculated that the P. smithii could be a junior synonym of P. cyanopus, but this has not been confirmed.