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SPECIES ATLAS · PSILOCYBE

Psilocybe cubensis

Named by (Earle) Singer, 1948

Psilocybin record: confirmed (several modern analyses)

Full article: Psilocybe Cubensis: Name, History, Research

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.

Earle published Stropharia cubensis in 1906 (Informe anual de la Estación Central Agronómica de Cuba 1: 240); the type was collected at Santiago de las Vegas, Cuba, on 19 June 1904 and is held at the New York Botanical Garden (NY). Rolf Singer moved it to Psilocybe in 1948 (Sydowia 2: 37). Species Fungorum lists nine further synonyms, including Naematoloma caerulescens Pat. (1907) and Stropharia cyanescens Murrill (1941).

Named
(Earle) Singer, 1948
First published as
Stropharia cubensis Earle (1906)
Other names in the records
Stropharia cubensis Earle (1906), Naematoloma caerulescens Pat. (1907), Hypholoma caerulescens (Pat.) Sacc. & Trotter (1912), Stropharia caerulescens (Pat.) Singer (1935), Psilocybe cubensis var. caerulescens (Pat.) Singer & A.H. Sm. (1958), Stropharia caerulescens S. Imai (1932), Stropharia venenata S. Imai (1938), Stropharia cyanescens Murrill (1941), Psilocybe cubensis var. cyanescens (Murrill) Singer & A.H. Sm. (1958), Psilocybe fasciata Hongo (1957)
Type specimen
Santiago de las Vegas, La Habana, Cuba; type collected by F. S. Earle on 19 June 1904 (NY 761563) (GBIF type specimen record 1928210301; pin = Wikidata coordinates for Santiago de las Vegas (Q1747267))
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. 1958

    Reported Psilocybin isolated from cultures of Stropharia cubensis (Heim & Hofmann, Comptes rendus 247: 557), as cited in Guzmán 1983

    Method: not read (paper not opened). Guzmán 1983, The Genus Psilocybe (Beih. Nova Hedwigia 74), archive.org scan

  2. 2022

    Confirmed Psilocybin low or undetectable in most fungarium vouchers (one with psilocin); detected in cultivated mushrooms and mycelium

    Method: UHPLC-MS (HILIC). Bradshaw et al. 2022, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 88: e01498-22

  3. 2022

    Confirmed Psilocybin, psilocin, baeocystin, norbaeocystin and aeruginascin detected in four collections

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

  4. 2025

    Confirmed Psilocybin and psilocin measured in cultivated strains confirmed by ITS, including strains labelled P. natalensis that sequenced as P. cubensis

    Method: HPLC-DAD and HPLC-MS/MS. Cohen et al. 2025, Sci. Rep. 15: 13822

What the record doesn’t show: Herbarium vouchers often show little or no psilocybin, and strain labels in commerce don't reliably match the species name.

Records on file.

GBIF, the global biodiversity database, held 3,934 occurrence records under this name, 5 of them from Canada, when we checked on October 25, 2026. GBIF held 5 Canadian records on 25 October 2026, all preserved specimens (3 British Columbia, 1 Ontario, 1 without a province). 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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