In botanical and fungal naming, variety (varietas) is a rank below species (Madrid Code, Art. 4.1). A variety name is written with the abbreviation “var.” between the species name and the varietal epithet.
One example in psilocybin mushrooms is Psilocybe serbica var. bohemica, published in 2011. The Species Fungorum record checked in October 2026 gives Psilocybe bohemica Šebek (1983) as its current name and treats the varietal epithet as superseded (Species Fungorum). That is one authority’s view, which is why a formal variety should always come with a dated source.
In conversation “variety” just means a kind of something, and mushroom marketing often uses it that way. Adding the word to a label does not make the label a formal rank. Cultivated-plant names follow a separate code, so a variety is also different from a cultivar.
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