Hi there. Yes you have Psilocybe azurescens,
but the person who sold you the
                spores or culture does not know what he is
selling.

                There is no such mushroom as Psilocybe
cyanescens var. Astoria ossip. I have
                no idea who started this roomer.
 

                Just to make a quick point of this thread
and rumors:

                Ryan referred to it as asotia ossip.

                Anandam referred to it as Asstoria osip, and

                Aims called it Asstoria osip.

                None of these names exist and shouldn't.

                This species was first introduce to a public
audience at the annual Breittenbush
                Hot Springs Myco Media Mushroom Conference
by me and three other people
                in the early 1980's.

                I also have presented more than seven
lectures and slide-shows of entheogenic
                visionary mushrooms at breittenbush over the
years.

                Stamets named the species Psilocybe
azurescens, after first suggesting to me
                that there was a new species of panaeolus he
was going to name Panaeolus
                azurescens.

                In 1983, this species became known locally
throughout the west coast of Oregon
                as Psilocybe astoriensis, because it grew in
vast abundant large quantities in
                wood chips and fields in this region of
Oregon.

                Some Europeans and even FMRC President
Steven Peele had referred to it is
                Astoria ossip, as a variation of Psilocybe
cyanescens.

                Gartz has also grown this species in Germany
and they even look different than
                the mushrooms he originally collected
sporeprints from when he and I did a three
                week study of the mycoflora of Washington
and Oregon in 1992.

                Here is Gartz' first collection of Psilocybe
azurescens made from sporeprints
                taken from the mushroom specimens I placed
below his photograph of German
                grown specimens from his Astoria, Oregon
collections in 1992.
 
 

                I am now presenting below a photograph of
Psilocybe azurescens similar to the
                one Amanita just posted.
 
 

                and two additional Photographs showing this
species in different stages of its
                growth and developement.
 
 
 
 

                These latter two phtographs were taken in
Oregon and they are the original
                strain or race or whatever one wants to
refer to it as but it is not Astoria
                ossip.......

                Check it out and tell who ever sold you that
strain from Austria with the name of
                Astoria ossip that the name is bullshit and
does not officially exist in any botanical
                or mycological or even any scientific
journal and is not now nor ever has been
                recognized by any of the the scholars or
mycologists who study these
                mushrooms.

                This is from someone who really knows the
history of this species.

                Mj

                [This message has been edited by mjshroomer
(edited November 08, 1999).]