Liberty Cap

Liberty caps are the only mushrooms in The Netherlands which contain psilocybin. The substance psilocybin makes you trip. For this reason Liberty caps are regularly picked by psychonauts for making a psychedelic journey. Other names are `kaalkopje' (Dutch), Spitzkegeliger Kahlkopf (German) psilocybe lancéolé (French) or just `psilo'.

While the different types of edible mushrooms that are stuffed on grocery shelves can be confusing to identify, Liberty Cap mushrooms have a distinct shape that can alert mushroom pickers. Liberty Cap mushrooms are so called because of the distinctive hat they wear on their weaving stalks. The bell-shaped, conical caps are barely an inch in diameter. The caps come to a pointy head and are chartreuse to brown in coloring. They have long lines that radiate down the moist caps. As they mature, the color fades from a rich taupe to a grayish brown. The grooves that run from the nipple-like top down to the rounded-edged bottom tend to fade as the mushroom dries out. This can make dried psilocybe semilanceata mushrooms harder to distinguish from their less-dangerous and passive counterparts.