Created December 21, 2004. Revised November 11, 2007
Copyright 1998-2007 by John W. Allen
MUSHROOM JOHN'S
TALES OF THE SHROOMS PRESENTS
The A PICTORIAL OF CULTIVATED ELELPHANT DUNG PSILOCYBE CUBENSIS
PAGE 1 of 15
CLICK ON EACH IMAGE TO ENLARGE
Photo: elephant on road to Ma Sa Valley near Erawan, Thailand and the Eye of the Elephant shroom
| Presenting 294 images over 15 pages depicting the in vitro cultivation of Psilocybe cubensis (Earle) Singer, grown from a sporeprint which originated from a fresh mushroom found fruiting in elephant dung near Na Muang, Koh Samui, Thailand |
| The first elephant I ever saw on Koh Samui is the one I refer to as the Elephant Gate elephants. It is an entrance to an ancient Thai Buddhist temple. I Found one mushroom growing near here in buffalo manure along the road and I gave that print I made to Road Kill, who unfortunately hasn't done any work on it since his mild heart attack last year. Here is the Elephant Gate. |
| Here is an image of me on said elephant on the left in 1991. This is my image before my circumcision. I later found out that I could have gotten six weeks in the local Samui Hoosgow and a 4000 baht fine for climbing up on this elephant. Earlier a woman and her two daughters were senteced to two weeks in Jail for climbing on a Buddha image while posing for a picture. Also, the Pink Buffalo strain was discovered by Milo Zverino and I and was found about a km down the road from here on a small rai of land which was fenced in with one Pink Buffalo |
| Well last year they repainted the elephant statues. I did a photo of the elephant on the left side and the elephant on the right side had an evil eye painted on him. This evil eyed elephant image was taken by my friend Oliver, Manager of the Samui Beach Rsort where we stay on Samui. |
| So I was trippin' around the island on my
mortorcycle and I took a turn on a road I had never gone down before
near the Na Muang water fall area of Samui. I went along the road for about a 1/4 km and noticed this giant elephant dung heap. In fact there were seven such mounds at this location and a single shanty shack with a Samui lady bathing in a well. She wrapped a batik around her bod and came over with one of her kids to investigate. Here is one of those dung heap piles. But no elephants in sight anywhere. they were up the mountain on tourist treks. There were hundreds of Coprinus and Bolbitius species in the elephant dung at this location. Other shrooms found in the various dung heap piles on the island have included Panaeolus antillarum, Mycena's, Panaeoluus campanulatus, Panaeouls sphinctrinus and Conocybe spp. Critters also live in the dung heaps and include crabworms (image to soon be posted of crabworm), centipedes and millipedes. |
| It was at this dung heap where i found my first cubes in elephant shit. Here are the two images of that occurrence. Observe the patch of white mycelia from where I removed a dung heap. Shame I left a few days later before anything else came up. Had 17 days of no rain during monsoon season. Ha!. The second cube image also from this particular dung heap in the above posted image. There were seven of these large dungheap piles at this particular location. |
| Well the next day I decided to come back to recheck
this cool place. Every year they move the elephants around and dump
their feces in hidden places. Later cattle tenders and others compost
the manure into fifty pound bags and ship it off the island to some
other location for fertilizers. As I was about 100 yards from the turn off road to the Sever Heaps of Dung, I looked to my right and saw an elephant with two other large dung heap piles and a few smaller ones. I did not notice this the day before because there was no elephant so I did not look away from the road. In the 2nd image, you can see the smaller piles of dung in the background behind the elephant. I also noticed some Lepiotas growing from the dung in the clearing surrounded by coconut and fan palms in the area. I only photograph symetrical Lepiotas but have photographed them growing up in palm fronds fallen on the grouwn and found shrooms growing from coconuts and on said coconut trees in the area. After parking my motorcycle, I approached the elephants dung mound when I noticed a Samui woman walking towards me from a shack in the clearing. As she neared me she beckoned for me to extend the palm of my hand towards her. She placed a medium-small cube in my hand and said, "for you, hed kee kwai." Posted below me are the two images of the elephants i saw on my right, their dung heaps and a photograph of the Samui elephant tender as she approached me with a P. cubensis specimen in her hand. |
| Here is another elephhant krall near Chewang. This
one was closed up this year. It moved up to the Na Muang Waterfall area
and takes tourists on mountain treks. Here I found Copelandia, Panaeolus antillarum, Conocybe and a beautiful Pink Mushroom, as yet unidentified. Here is an image of the elephants at this Krall |
| Now here are two images from Ralphsters friends in the Nederlands who grew the shrooms in the 2 pictures posted directly below. They were grown from the first spore print collected from the shroom in the above image growing in the ball of the elephant dung. |
| On the following pages, I will post the images of the growth of this mushroom from the 2nd sporeprint I made from the elephant dung cubes. |
As a special treat to all interested. Here is a photograph of one of the 8 white elephants owned by the King of Thailand. This was taken at the Royal Palace Gardens in Bangkok, Thailand.
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