shroomverse
The Shroomverse alien by a still Swedish lake edged with birch and spruce at golden hour.

SPECIES ATLAS · GYMNOPILUS

Gymnopilus junonius

Named by (Fr.) P.D. Orton, 1960

Psilocybin record: disputed

Full article: Is Gymnopilus Junonius Psychedelic?

A history of a name and a chemistry record, not an identification guide. No name, picture or description can show that a wild mushroom is safe, and poisonous mushrooms are mistaken for magic mushrooms. If someone may have eaten a wild mushroom, call a poison centre without waiting for symptoms: 1-844-POISON-X in most of Canada, 1-800-463-5060 in Quebec. Call 911 if they’re unconscious, not breathing or having a seizure.

How it was named.

Fries published Agaricus junonius in 1821 in Systema Mycologicum. Orton moved it to Gymnopilus in 1960; Index Fungorum treats the later name Gymnopilus spectabilis, used in most older chemistry, as a synonym. A 2020 DNA study found that none of the North American sequences it had represent true G. junonius and named several new species in the group, including the Japanese G. orientispectabilis.

Named
(Fr.) P.D. Orton, 1960
First published as
Agaricus junonius Fr. (1821)
Other names in the records
Agaricus junonius Fr., Agaricus spectabilis Weinm., Gymnopilus spectabilis (Weinm.) A.H. Sm., Pholiota spectabilis (Weinm.) P. Kumm., Pholiota junonia (Fr.) P. Karst.
Type specimen
Sweden; Index Fungorum gives 'Typification: not indicated' for Agaricus junonius Fr. (Index Fungorum record, Agaricus junonius)
The pin marks the type locality at the level of detail the record gives: one historical collection, not a range or a place to look. Land outlines: Natural Earth.

The psilocybin record.

Every analysis we could verify, oldest first, including results that found nothing. No amounts are given: they vary between collections and this is not a potency guide.

  1. 1978

    Reported Psilocybin detected in G. spectabilis in a screen of 18 Gymnopilus species (origin of the material not stated in the abstract)

    Method: anion exchange/cellulose chromatography screen (detection limit stated in abstract). Hatfield & Valdes 1978, Lloydia 41: 140-144 (abstract)

  2. 1981

    Not detected Koike et al. reported psilocybin in G. liquiritiae but not in G. junonius (Japanese collections), as summarised by Kreisel & Lindequist 1988 and Stijve & Kuyper 1988

    Method: HPLC (UV 220 nm), per Stijve & Kuyper 1988. Stijve & Kuyper 1988, Persoonia 13: 463-465 (full text, archive.org, CC BY)

  3. 1986

    Not detected Psilocybin and related compounds 'have not been detected in our collections' of G. spectabilis (Japan)

    Method: isolation chemistry; screening method not stated in abstract. Kusano et al. 1986, Chem. Pharm. Bull. 34: 3465-3470 (abstract, J-STAGE)

  4. 1988

    Not detected Psilocybin, baeocystin and related tryptamines absent in three collections of G. spectabilis from Switzerland, the Netherlands and the USA (detection limit 0.005% dry weight)

    Method: TLC on silica and cellulose with pDMCA reagent. Stijve & Kuyper 1988, Persoonia 13: 463-465 (full text, archive.org, CC BY)

  5. 2024

    Disputed A gene tree dates a psilocybin gene-cluster gain 'in G. junonius ~9 mya'; the main text reports no psilocybin genes from the G. junonius genome it used as an outgroup

    Method: phylogenomics (no chemistry). Bradshaw et al. 2024, PNAS 121: e2311245121 (full text, PMC10801892)

What the record doesn’t show: One positive screen (1978) against several negative analyses, and the name covered several species, so old results may not refer to G. junonius in today's sense.

Records on file.

GBIF, the global biodiversity database, held 21,858 occurrence records under this name, 38 of them from Canada, when we checked on October 25, 2026. GBIF held 38 Canadian records under G. junonius (plus 55 under the separately listed G. spectabilis) on 25 October 2026, but Thorn et al. (2020) found no true G. junonius among the North American sequences they had. Records include unverified observations and old misidentifications, so counts show where people have recorded the name, not where it grows.

See the name on GBIF

Sources

Compiled from the sources above; last checked .

Save to Pinterest