Big-headed conocybe (Conocybe juniana)
Systematics:
- Department: Basidiomycota (Basidiomycetes)
- Subdivision: Agaricomycotina (Agaricomycetes)
- Class: Agaricomycetes (Agaricomycetes)
- Subclass: Agaricomycetidae (Agaricomycetes)
- Order: Agaricales (Agaric or Lamellar)
- Family: Bolbitiaceae (Bolbitiaceae)
- Genus: Conocybe
- Species: Conocybe juniana (Large-headed conocybe)
Synonyms:
Conocybe magnicapitata
Cap of a large-headed conocybe: Diameter 0.5 – 2 cm, conical, ribbed from translucent plates, smooth. The color is brownish brown, sometimes with a reddish tint. The flesh is very thin, brown.
Blades: Frequent, narrow, loose or slightly adherent, cap color or somewhat lighter.
Spore powder: Reddish brown.
Stem: Very thin, dark brown. There is no ring.
Distribution: Big-headed conocybe is found in grassy areas in summer, like many similar mushrooms, it welcomes irrigation. Lives very shortly – although, as far as can be judged, it is still longer than, for example, Conocybe lactea.
Similar species: Very complex topic. The color of the spore powder and the extremely modest size make it possible to cut off knowingly false variants (Psilocybe, Panaeolus, etc.), but it is extremely difficult for an amateur to obtain information about small herbaceous fungi that no one needs. So I’ll tell you straight: I don’t know. If you know something – write. I would greatly appreciate it.
Edible: Hardly anyone found out. On the other hand, I can note one detail: for scientific purposes, I tasted this mushroom (the taste turned out to be soft, mushroom), after which I had vivid, imaginative dreams all night, more similar to hallucinations. Maybe this is not accidental, and Conocybe magnicapitata contains some kind of psychoactive substance of unprecedented strength? Unlikely, of course. For sure not.
Notes: This mushroom is remarkable not even by how small it is – we have seen it and smaller. It is remarkable in that, despite all its diminutiveness, it somehow retains the shapes and proportions of a real mushroom. Look at the small marasmias, at these tiny gallerinas, at the microscopic entolomiform fungi — it's all laughter. One gets the impression that they were created by some giant who does not understand the details at all. And he created giants for people like him. Those who will see and agree from a distance, but will not scrutinize. So we got something like a greatly reduced model of the mushroom. The plates are somehow stuck, the hat with the leg grows together incorrectly, in a word, hack. But Conocybe magnicapitata, I tell you, is a different matter. This mushroom is real. Let him live for a couple of days.
