The following file is from Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide by O.T. 
Oss & O.N. Oeric (Quick American Publishing, 1991).  It is the first part of 
Part 1: Locating and Identifying the Fungus: Collecting and Germinating 
Spores.  I present it in the hope that no mis-guided youth ingest poisonous 
mushrooms in their pursuit of greater enlightenment.


  In the New World, Stropharia cubensis can be found in appropriate habitats 
throughout the Southern U.S., all through the costal regions of Mexico, and 
throughout coastal and equatorial regions of South America.  In the U.S., it 
has been reported from Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, 
Florida, Tennessee, and Georgia.  Its distribution would probably be even 
greater were it not for the fact that its environmental requirements limit 
to regions of mild temperatures and high humidity.
  Because of its specific habitat and singular appearance, Stropharia 
cubensis is one of the easiest mushrooms to locate and identify.  As 
already mentioned, it can be found growing out of cow-pies in pastures 
during rainy warm seasons.  Other dung-growing mushrooms may also be found 
in the same pasture, but these bear little resemblance to Stropharia.  The
following botanical description of Stropharia Cubensis ('shrooms) is taken 
from _Mushrooms of North America_ by Orson K. Miller, Jr.:

     Cap pale yellowish, viscid; persistent ring; blue-staining stalk.
     Cap 1.5-8 cm broad, conic, bell-shaped, convex in age, viscid, without 
 hairs, whitish to pale yellow, light brownish in age, stains bluish in age.  
 Flesh firm, white, bruises blue.  Gills adnate (attached) to adnexed 
 (notched), close, grey to violet-grey in age with white edges.  Stalk 4-15 
 cm long, 4-14 mm thick, enlarging somewhat toward the base, dry, without 
 hairs, white staining blue when bruised.  Veil white, leaving a superior 
 membranous ring.  Spores 10-17 u x 7-10 u eliptical to oval in side-view, 
 thick-walled, with large pore at apex, purple-brown spore print.  Cystidia 
 (sterile cells) on gill edge club-shaped with rounded heads.

Miller places this species in the genus Psilocybe, after Singer.
  The flesh of this mushroom exhibits the property of staining a bluish 
color when bruised or broken.  This blue-staining reaction is apparently an 
enzymatic oxidation of psilocin to an indole diquinone (Bocks, 1967) and is 
a fairly reliable indicator of the presence of psilocybin, not only in 
Stropharia cubensis, but alson in other closely related genera (members of 
the family Strophariaceae)(cf. Benedict, et al., 1967).  Other mushrooms, 
such ans members of the genus Russula, section Nigricantinae, and Boletus, 
exhibit a similar blueing.  The blueing in these cases, however, is not due 
to the presence of indole substrates and these mushrooms otherwise bear no 
resemblance whatever to Stropharia cubensis or related species (Singer, 
1958, p247)
