How to tell Glistening inkcap from Liberty cap

Young caps are egg-shaped, 1 to 2.5 cm, then bell-shaped and convex, 2 to 4 cm across, occasionally 5 cm; with age the margin splits and turns up. The colour is honey brown, ochre or russet, darker in the centre and paler at the edge, greying with age. The surface is grooved almost to the centre.

Young caps are covered in tiny white, glittering grains like sugar or mica. Rain and dew wash them off, so older caps are bare.

The cap is small, 1-2.5 cm across, sharply conical or bell-shaped with a pronounced pointed knob in the centre, which gives it the epithet semilanceata ("half-lance-shaped"). The cap skin is smooth, slimy in wet weather, dry with lengthwise grooves in dry weather. The colour is ochre-cream; olive-brown with a greenish tint when wet, pale cream when dry. The pointed central knob is the most characteristic diagnostic feature.

The gills are crowded, attached or free, white at first, then grey-brown, purplish brown and black. With age they blacken and partly dissolve, though less completely than in the common inkcap.

The spore print is black-brown to black.

The gills are attached to the stem and moderately crowded. In young mushrooms they're greyish-cream, darkening to purplish-blackish as the spores mature. The spore print is dark purple-black, a diagnostic feature of the genus Psilocybe.

The stem is 3 to 8 cm tall, occasionally 10 cm, and 2 to 5 mm thick, white, silky, hollow and brittle, ochre or brownish at the base. Young stems show a fine down under a hand lens. There's no ring.

The stem is 5-10 cm tall and 0.15-0.3 cm thick, so very long and thin, often curved. The colour is yellow-cream to light brown, and the surface is smooth with fine lengthwise fibres. There is no ring, and this is essential. It often turns blue when damaged, a characteristic psilocybin reaction and one of the diagnostic tests.

The flesh is very thin, brittle and whitish.

The flesh is very thin, soft, yellowish to greenish. It quickly turns blue to blue-green when cut or damaged, a characteristic reaction of psilocybin alkaloids on contact with air. The smell is faint, mealy in some populations.

The smell isn't distinctive.

Faint, neutral or mealy, nothing distinctive. The smell is not a warning sign.