Psilocybe cubensis · Hymenogastraceae · described 1906, Cuba
The species and its strains, catalogued
Psilocybe cubensis is a psilocybin-producing mushroom that grows on cattle dung in warm, humid regions. It was described from Cuba in 1906 and nearly all named magic mushroom strains are lines of this one species. This site describes it the way a natural history collection would: one species, many labelled specimens, and a note on each label saying what is known and what is not.
Table 1 Twenty-six names, one species
Reading a cell. Number and two-letter code, the published psilocybin content in mg per gram of dried mushroom (S 2026 study, G 2024 study), the name, and one fact. n.d. means no measurement found.
- Formal taxon
- Measured cultivar
- Place name, not measured
- Trade or trait name, not measured
Sources: Sharchaton et al. 2026, Goff et al. 2024, Kurzbaum et al. 2025, Bradshaw et al. 2026. Every cell links to its entry.
Reading the table
The table above arranges 26 names like elements, one cell each. The colour shows what kind of name it is: a formal taxon with a published description, a cultivar with a laboratory measurement, a cultivar named after a place, or a trade or trait name. The number in the corner of a measured cell is its published psilocybin content in milligrams per gram of dried mushroom. Most cultivars have no measurement at all, which the table marks as n.d.
Two things follow from the table. The measured cultivars span roughly 2 to 20 mg/g, a tenfold range. And single mushrooms, harvests and storage change those numbers by tens of percent, so a strain name predicts less than the cell suggests. Both are explained on psilocybin content and strain names.
In this collection
- Name and origin: Earle's 1906 description, Singer's new genus, the synonyms from Vietnam and Florida, and the African relative found in 2026.
- Morphology and habitat: cap, gills, ring, spore print, why it turns blue, and where it has been recorded.
- Strain names: how cultivars arise and why the same name can hide different cultures.
- Psilocybin content: every published strain measurement we found, side by side.
- Strain index: a short, sourced entry for every cell in the table.
- Legal status: the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States.
The mushrooms are illegal in most countries, including the four above. In the Netherlands they have been on List II of the Opium Act since 2008, while grow kits may still be sold. Nothing here is advice to buy, import or grow them where that is against the law.
