Psilocybe Mushrooms

Psilocybe is a genus of gilled mushrooms found worldwide, in the family Hymenogastraceae, and many of its species contain the psychedelic prodrug psilocybin. The fruit bodies are generally small, undistinguished brown mushrooms with a hygrophanous cap and a lilac-brown to dark purple-brown spore print. The hallucinogenic species usually stain blue where bruised, though blue bruising alone is not a reliable way to identify them. The greatest diversity is in the neotropics, from Mesoamerica through Brazil and Chile. Hallucinogenic species have a long history of use among the native peoples of Mesoamerica for religious communion, divination and healing. The Aztecs called them teonanácatl, divine mushroom. After the Spanish conquest their use was forcibly suppressed and driven underground. In 1955 Valentina and R. Gordon Wasson became the first Westerners to take part in an indigenous mushroom ceremony, and Roger Heim identified the mushrooms they brought back as Psilocybe. The page records no fatalities from the psychoactive compounds themselves.