Where do magic mushrooms grow in Canada? What the province-by-province records show

Where do magic mushrooms grow in Canada? The honest answer comes from records, not rumours. Museum herbaria and community observation platforms have logged psilocybin-producing species in several provinces, and the open GBIF database gathers those records in one place. The pattern is lopsided: most come from British Columbia, a second cluster comes from Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, and the Prairies and the territories have almost nothing.

This is a natural-history article, not a field guide. It reports which names have been recorded in which province, and where the records run out. It does not describe what any mushroom looks like, where or when to look, or whether anything is safe to eat. We give provinces only, never localities, on purpose.

Where do magic mushrooms grow in Canada, according to the records?

We queried GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, on 20 October 2026. It holds 903 Canadian records under the genus Psilocybe: 495 preserved specimens, 385 community observations and a few DNA samples. Specimens come from herbaria such as the Canadian National Mycological Herbarium of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the University of British Columbia herbarium; observations come mostly from iNaturalist and Mushroom Observer.

By province, the Psilocybe records split like this: British Columbia 500, Ontario 118, Quebec 97, New Brunswick 48, Nova Scotia 34, Newfoundland and Labrador 19, Manitoba 10, Prince Edward Island 7, and one each in Alberta, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. Saskatchewan, Nunavut and the rest have none under that genus. A few records name no province, so these are lower bounds. The genus Panaeolus, which includes some psilocybin producers, is spread more evenly: 500 records, led by Ontario (136), British Columbia (134) and Alberta (75).

A genus count is not a magic-mushroom count. Psilocybe in GBIF also holds names with no published psilocybin evidence, and Panaeolus holds many species that tested negative. The table below narrows the view to species where we found published laboratory evidence of psilocybin.

None of the laboratory work in the right-hand column is stated to have used Canadian material. It shows that a species can make psilocybin, not what any Canadian collection contains.

Which species are recorded in British Columbia?

British Columbia is where almost all records of the West Coast species sit. 153 of 160 Canadian P. cyanescens records, 49 of 50 P. stuntzii records and all 14 province-labelled P. azurescens records are in BC. Most P. pelliculosa and P. baeocystis records are there too, and BC holds the largest single share of P. semilanceata, 39 of 98.

A 2022 study calls P. cyanescens well known on the Pacific Coast of the USA and not native to Europe (Gotvaldová et al., 2022), which fits the BC cluster. A laboratory group grew both from wild-collected material and measured their psilocybin (Windsor et al., 2025). That paper does not say where its wild material came from. For the history behind these names, see our pages on P. cyanescens and P. azurescens.

BC’s lead partly reflects effort. The province has a large herbarium collection and many active observers, and 128 of the 160 P. cyanescens records are recent community observations. More records can mean more people looking, not more mushrooms.

What about Ontario and Quebec?

Central Canada’s main psilocybin species in the records is Psilocybe caerulipes. Of its 67 Canadian records, 23 are in Quebec, 22 in Ontario and 14 in New Brunswick, and it has no BC record at all. A 2022 laboratory study reported relatively high psilocybin levels in two collections (Gotvaldová et al., 2022). Panaeolus cinctulus and Pluteus salicinus also appear in both provinces.

The famous species are close to absent. Ontario has one P. cyanescens observation and no P. semilanceata record; Quebec has two P. semilanceata specimens, both from 1989. We go through the Ontario records name by name, including the negative lab results, in do magic mushrooms grow in Ontario?

Do magic mushrooms grow in Atlantic Canada?

The records say psilocybin species have been found there. Outside BC, P. semilanceata, the species called the liberty cap, is recorded almost only in the Atlantic provinces: New Brunswick 20, Newfoundland and Labrador 15, Nova Scotia 11 and Prince Edward Island 6. The oldest Atlantic specimen is a 1959 Nova Scotia collection in the E. C. Smith Herbarium at Acadia University; the other older specimens date from 1976 to 1988, most of them in the federal herbarium. Almost all Atlantic records since 2010 are community observations.

Psilocybe caerulipes adds 14 New Brunswick records and one each in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador (GBIF). Our liberty cap page covers that species’ name and research history.

What about the Prairies and the North?

Very little. Alberta, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon each have one Psilocybe record, and Saskatchewan has none (GBIF). Manitoba’s 10 records are herbarium specimens from 1927 to 1974, six filed as Psilocybe subviscida, a name for which we found no psilocybin test, one identified only to genus, and three filed under Stropharia and Psathyrella names that GBIF links to Psilocybe. None of the Prairie or territorial Psilocybe records is a species in the table above.

The Prairie records with psilocybin evidence come from other genera: Panaeolus cinctulus (Alberta 3, Saskatchewan 2), Gymnopilus luteofolius (Alberta 14, Saskatchewan 6, Manitoba 3) and Pluteus salicinus (Manitoba 3). These are small numbers, and for Gymnopilus the evidence is genes in one sequenced specimen, not a measured psilocybin level (Bradshaw et al., 2024).

What can’t occurrence records tell you?

Quite a lot. Treat every number in this article as a lead, not a map.

• Names are often wrong. A DNA study of 94 Psilocybe museum specimens found that, apart from a few well-known species, specimen names were largely unreliable, even at genus level (Bradshaw et al., 2022). A 2024 genome study re-examined a specimen labelled P. baeocystis and redetermined it as P. cyanescens (Bradshaw et al., 2024).
• A record is not always a wild mushroom. Of the five Canadian P. cubensis records, one is a 1982 culture grown from a Toronto street sample, one is a 2018 BC poison-centre case whose note describes illicitly cultivated material, and one is a culture. Only one, from 1983, carries a note suggesting an outdoor find, and it says “allegedly.”
• Effort shapes the map. Herbarium collecting, the number of mycologists and the popularity of observation apps differ by province. Low counts in the Prairies may mean fewer collectors as well as fewer fungi.
• Old records are not current ones. Many specimens are decades old. They show a name was recorded once, not that anything still grows there.
• Counts are approximate. Some records lack a province, duplicate specimens can sit in several herbaria, and spellings vary (Québec and Quebec are separate labels in GBIF). We added variants together.
• Records measure nothing chemical. Psilocybin content varies widely, by more than a factor of seven between collections of one species in a Pacific Northwest study (Beug and Bigwood, 1982), and dried museum specimens can lose it over time (Bradshaw et al., 2022).
• Absence of records is not absence of fungi. A province with no record has simply no record in this database.

Why are look-alikes a poisoning risk across Canada?

Health Canada warns that many species look alike and that people can eat poisonous mushrooms by mistake, thinking they are magic mushrooms (Health Canada). The Ontario Poison Centre says only a mushroom expert, a mycologist, can tell poisonous from non-poisonous mushrooms (Ontario Poison Centre).

One deadly group is a Canadian research subject. A 2021 study tested 70 samples of Galerina and close relatives collected in western British Columbia. It found deadly amatoxins in all 24 samples of the Galerina marginata complex, at levels the authors compare with the death cap, and none in the other 46 (Landry et al., 2021). The authors note that Galerina’s roughly 300 species are notoriously hard to identify. In GBIF, G. marginata has 833 Canadian records across ten provinces and one territory, more than the whole Psilocybe genus.

The death cap, Amanita phalloides, has been recorded in British Columbia, and HealthLinkBC reports that a young child in the province died in 2016 after eating wild mushrooms later identified as death caps. It warns that symptoms come in phases and can fade before liver and kidney damage appears days later (HealthLinkBC). Our Ontario-specific page on poisonous mushrooms and our misidentification guide go further.

Who do you call after a possible mushroom poisoning in Canada?

Call 911 in an emergency. For a possible poisoning, Canada has a national toll-free number, 1-844-POISON-X (1-844-764-7669), launched in 2023; callers from Quebec are directed to the Centre antipoison du Québec (Health Canada). The Canadian Association of Poison Control Centres lists these regional lines (CAPCC):

New Brunswick, Manitoba and Saskatchewan callers can use 1-844-POISON-X; CAPCC also lists provincial lines for Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The Ontario Poison Centre says not to wait until the person feels sick (Ontario Poison Centre). For pets, call an emergency veterinarian. The safety page keeps these numbers.

Is it legal to pick wild magic mushrooms in Canada?

No. A wild origin changes nothing in law. Psilocybin and psilocin are listed in Schedule III of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, and section 4(1) says that, except as authorized under the regulations, no person shall possess a substance in Schedules I, II or III (Justice Laws, Act current to 30 September 2026). Health Canada states that the production, sale and possession of magic mushrooms are illegal in Canada (Health Canada).

This is general information, not legal advice. Our article on whether magic mushrooms are legal in Canada covers exemptions, the Special Access Program and pending legislation.

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