shroomverse
The Shroomverse alien in a tall eucalyptus forest with peeling bark in southeastern Australia.

SPECIES ATLAS · PSILOCYBE

Psilocybe subaeruginosa

Named by Cleland, 1927

Psilocybin record: confirmed (several modern analyses)

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.

Cleland published Psilocybe subaeruginosa in 1927 in the Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia (51: 305). Species Fungorum lists two collections behind the name (Semmens 31 and a Cleland collection) and the localities New South Wales and South Australia. It lists no synonyms.

Named
Cleland, 1927
Type specimen
New South Wales, South Australia (Species Fungorum: typification Semmens 31; Cleland s.n.) (Species Fungorum record 279087)
Name record
Species Fungorum
The record we cite gives no map position for the type specimen. 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. 1970

    Reported Psilocybin reported in an Australian agaric, P. subaeruginosa (Picker & Rickards)

    Method: not read (paper not opened). Picker & Rickards 1970, Aust. J. Chem. 23: 853-855

  2. 1980

    Reported Psilocybin and psilocin determined in Psilocybe mushrooms; Gotvaldová et al. 2022 cite it for P. subaeruginosa

    Method: HPLC (UV and fluorescence detection, per Gotvaldová et al.). Perkal et al. 1980, J. Chromatogr. 196: 180-184

  3. 2022

    Confirmed Psilocybin and psilocin detected at low levels in one collection

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

  4. 2026

    Confirmed Psilocybin and psilocin quantified in indoor-cultivated material whose identity was checked by DNA testing

    Method: HPTLC. Windsor et al. 2026, J. AOAC Int. 109: 37-50

What the record doesn’t show: Gotvaldová et al. found very low levels in their single collection, lower than in other members of the P. cyanescens complex, so one sample says little.

Records on file.

GBIF, the global biodiversity database, held 6,464 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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