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The Shroomverse alien looking over wide savanna with scattered acacias in central Africa.

SPECIES ATLAS · PANAEOLUS

Panaeolus africanus

Named by Ola'h, 1969

Psilocybin record: reported (one or older reports)

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.

Ola'h described Panaeolus africanus in 1969 in Revue de Mycologie, from a collection made by Cailleux in the Central African Republic in May 1966. Species Fungorum accepts it under that name. A variety, var. diversistipus, was later described from India and is treated by GBIF as a synonym.

Named
Ola'h, 1969
Other names in the records
Panaeolus africanus var. diversistipus A. Kaur, Atri & M. Kaur (GBIF synonym)
Type specimen
Central African Republic; type collected by Cailleux, May 1966 (Index Fungorum). (Index Fungorum record, Panaeolus africanus)
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. 2023

    Reported Listed in a review table as containing psilocybin and psilocin, citing Guzmán et al. 1998, Pollock 1976, Allen 2011, Ola'h 1969, Wurst et al. 2002 and Alam 2013; listed in Strauss et al. 2023 without its own analysis

    Method: review (no analysis). Strauss et al. 2023, Heliyon 9: e16338, Table 3 (full text, PMC10238702)

What the record doesn’t show: GBIF holds only four records, and the chemistry rests on a review citing Ola'h's 1969 monograph, which we did not open.

Records on file.

GBIF, the global biodiversity database, held 4 occurrence records under this name, 0 of them from Canada, when we checked on October 25, 2026. 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 .

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