shroomverse
The Shroomverse alien in an autumn hardwood forest of red maples and beech in upstate New York.

SPECIES ATLAS · PSILOCYBE

Psilocybe caerulipes

Named by (Peck) Sacc., 1887

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.

Charles Peck published Agaricus caerulipes in 1885, in the Annual Report of the New York State Museum (38: 89), from his own collection in New York. Saccardo moved it to Psilocybe in 1887 (Sylloge Fungorum 5: 1051). Singer's variety gastonii (1959), described from Mexico, is now listed as a synonym.

Named
(Peck) Sacc., 1887
First published as
Agaricus caerulipes Peck (1885)
Other names in the records
Agaricus caerulipes Peck (1885), Psilocybe caerulipes var. gastonii Singer (1959)
Type specimen
New York (Species Fungorum, basionym Agaricus caerulipes: typification Peck s.n.) (Species Fungorum record 505682; pin = Wikidata coordinates for New York State (Q1384))
Name record
Species Fungorum
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. 2022

    Confirmed Psilocybin and psilocin detected, with baeocystin, norbaeocystin and aeruginascin, in two collections; the authors note that no earlier analytical data were available

    Method: UHPLC-MS/MS. Gotvaldová et al. 2022, Int. J. Mol. Sci. 23: 14068

What the record doesn’t show: Only one chemical study (two collections) was found, and at least one herbarium specimen filed under another name (P. quebecensis, NY1901130) turned out to be this species in 2024.

Records on file.

GBIF, the global biodiversity database, held 1,143 occurrence records under this name, 67 of them from Canada, when we checked on October 25, 2026. GBIF held 67 Canadian records on 25 October 2026, from Ontario (22), Quebec (23), New Brunswick (14), Newfoundland and Labrador (1) and Nova Scotia (1), with 6 giving no province; 47 are community observations. 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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