The most important genus constituting the sacred mushrooms called teonanácatl in the Náhuatl language of the Mexica or Aztecs of Mesoamerica, meaning literally divine or wondrous mushroom. This almost cosmopolitan genus is found from the arctic to the tropics, although its main distribution is temperate. The species grow in the soil and on a variety of organic substrata such as humus, dung, rotting wood, bagasse, peat, and also in clumps of mosses.
Psilocybe (Stropharia) cubensis Earle in Est. Agron. Cuba 1 (1906) 240.
Pileus 1.6-5 cm in diameter (rarely 8.5-12.5), conic-campanulate, at first papillose at apex, then becoming convex to plane, sometimes with depression around umbo, umbo becoming obtuse (umbo or papilla sometimes absent), chocolate-brown or brown-orange, umbo yellow, pale tan to whitish near periphery, central area more or less fulvous, usually cyanaceous in age or upon injury, clearly viscous with sparse, distant floccose scales, becoming shiny glabrous; margin even, entire, not appendiculate. Stipe 4-7 cm long (sometimes up to 15), 0.4-2 cm in diameter, hollow, gravefully usually thickened near base, stiff, often bent, white becoming yellowish or ashy red, strongly sulcate-striate, otherwise smooth, glabrous to filbrillose, not hygrophanous; ring ample, membranaceous, smooth, fragile, irregular, ragged or lacerate, whitish becoming purplish black. Gills entire to undulate, serrate, adnate to adnexed, narrow, ventricose in midportion whitish to deep greyish violet or purple-brown, somewhat mottled. Flesh white, cyanescent upon injury, odourless. Spores ellipsoid, smooth, opaque, purple-brown, 11.5-17.5 x 8-11.5 x 7-9µ.
Known from southern Mexico, Central America, West Indies, South America, southeastern Asia, U.S. Gulf Coast, and Florida. Growing singly or in small groups, usually on dung or rich pasture soil, bagasse; fruiting from February to November or December, south of the equator from November to April.
Psilocybe mexicana Heim in Comptes Rend. 242 (1956) 967; Rev. Mycol. 22 (1957) 77.
Pileus 0.5-2 cm in diameter (rarely up to 3), 0.4-1.9 cm high, conic-campanulate, sometimes becoming hemisphereical to convex, often with central papilla, sometimes broadly conic becoming umbonate, umbo often with a bud-shaped papilla, very hygrophanous, glabrous or glabrescent; margin at times sulcatestriate to an apical disk; disk deep ocherous to ocherous brown, brownish red, nearly lilac-hued in growing state then fulvous, marginal area paler, grey-brown; silky white veil soon disappearing from margin. Stipe 2-6 cm long (rarely up to 8), hollow, gravefully tapering upward, often flexous especially in lower part which is nonbulbous, ocherous to lightly yellowish pink, paler above, fulvous or slightly reddish in central portion, red-brown or grey-brown basally; veil membranaceous, leaving appressed silky fibrils on upper third, evanescent. Flesh in pleus paler than on surface, pale yellow, cream-pink in stipe, not cyanaceous, but turning bluish on bruising, odour farinaceous. Spores about 8-12 x 5-8 x 5-6.7µ, compressed obovoid, subisodiametric, smooth, Spore deposit deep sepia to dark purple-brown.
Known from southern Mexico and Guatemala between 4,500 and 5,500 feet, especially in limestone regions, growing isolated or sparsely in moss or herbs along roadsides, humid meadows, and cornfields, and in the neighborhood of pine and oak forests; fruiting from May until October.
Psilocybe mexicana
