Agrocybe is a genus of mushrooms in the family Strophariaceae. Some species are poisonous. The genus has a widespread distribution, and contains about 100 species.

Distribution


Agrocybe aegerita growing on a poplar stump in Girona, Catalonia, Spain.
Mushroom cultivation began with the Romans and Greeks, who grew the small Agrocybe aegerita. The Romans believed that fungi fruited when lightning struck. In Europe, toxic forms are not normally found, but Agrocybe molesta could be confused with poisonous white Agaricus species or with poisonous Amanita species.

The edible southern species Agrocybe aegerita is commonly known as the Poplar mushroom, Chestnut mushroom or Velvet pioppino (Chinese: 茶樹菇). It is a white rot fungus and is a medium-sized agaric with a convex, almost flat, cap 3 to 10 cm in diameter. Underneath, it has numerous whitish radial plates adherent to the foot, later turning to a brownish-gray color, and light elliptic spores of 8-11 by 5-7 micrometres. The white fiber foot is generally curved, having a membraneous ring on the top part which promptly turns to tobacco color due to the falling spores. When very young, its color may be reddish-brown and later turn to a light brown color, more ocher toward the center and whiter around its border. It grows in tufts on logs and holes in the poplars, and other trees of large leaves It is cultivated and sold in Japan, Korea, Australia and China. It is an important valuable source possessing varieties of bioactive secondary metabolites such as indole derivatives with free radical scavenging activity, cylindan with anticancer activity, and also agrocybenine with antifungal activity.

Agrocybe farinacea of Japan, a species closely related to Agrocybe putaminum, has been reported to contain the hallucinogen psilocybin, however there has been no recent chemical analysis carried out on this mushroom, nor any modern reports of psychoactivity.

Selected list of species


Agrocybe pediades spores
Agrocybe acericola (maple agrocybe)
Agrocybe aegerita
Agrocybe allocystis
Agrocybe amara
Agrocybe arvalis
Agrocybe cylindracea
Agrocybe dura
Agrocybe erebia
Agrocybe farinacea (possibly contains psilocybin)
Agrocybe firma
Agrocybe lazoi
Agrocybe ludoviciana
Agrocybe molesta
Agrocybe paludosa
Agrocybe parasitica
Agrocybe pediades (common lawn mushroom)
Agrocybe praecox (common, widespread, and edible)
Agrocybe procera
Agrocybe putaminum
Agrocybe retigera
Agrocybe rivulosa
Agrocybe semiorbicularis
Agrocybe sororia
Agrocybe vervacti
Agrocybe viscosa
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source - Wikipedia