Foraging basics
How to identify, where to look, and the lookalikes that can hurt you.
Foraging is the oldest way people have found psilocybin mushrooms, and the least forgiving. Cultivation gives you a known species in a known container; a field gives you dozens of species growing side by side, several of which are dangerous.
Where they grow
In the Netherlands, Psilocybe semilanceata (Liberty Cap) appears in autumn on nutrient-poor grassland — old pasture, dune grass, unfertilised meadows. It grows from the grass, not from dung, which is one of the first things to check.
The rule that matters
Never eat a mushroom you cannot identify with certainty, and never rely on a single feature. Spore print colour, stem texture, the presence of a partial veil, bruising reaction and habitat all have to agree.
The dangerous lookalikes in Dutch grassland are small brown Galerina and Conocybe species, some of which contain the same liver-destroying amatoxins as the death cap. A misidentification here is not a bad trip; it is organ failure days later.
This guide is an orientation, not an identification key. Learn from an experienced forager in person before eating anything you picked.