Psilocybe cubensis
(Earle) Singer · Psilocybe sect. Cubensae
Golden teacher · Cube · Gold cap · San Isidro
The species almost everyone means when they say 'magic mushrooms'. It is the easiest to cultivate, the most widely available and the one every published dose table is implicitly written for. Moderate potency by the standards of the genus, several wild species are two to three times stronger.
1 deadly look-alike. Galerina marginata can be mistaken for this species and causes irreversible organ damage. How to tell them apart.
Potency
- Psilocybin
- 0.14–1.3% of dry weight
- Psilocin
- 0.11–0.5% of dry weight
- Total tryptamines
- 0.25–1.8%
- Relative to cubensis
- 1× (this is the reference)
The fourfold between-flush variation measured in this species is the reason no dose figure anywhere on this site is exact. Cultivated material is more consistent than wild, but 'more consistent' is not 'consistent'. Later flushes from the same tub are typically weaker than the first.
Dose ranges for this species
| Tier | Dried | Psilocybin | What to expect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Threshold | 0.3–1 g | 1.9–6.3 mg | Mild body load, slight colour and texture enhancement, mood shift. |
| Light | 1–1.75 g | 6.3–11 mg | Clear perceptual change. Surfaces breathe, emotions amplify, time distorts mildly. |
| Common | 1.75–2.5 g | 11–15.8 mg | Full psychedelic effect. Strong visuals with eyes closed, altered thought, emotional intensity. |
| Strong | 2.5–5 g | 15.8–31.5 mg | Ordinary self-reference goes. Marked visual distortion, time stops behaving. |
| Heavy | 5 g and above | 31.5 mg and above | Complete disruption of the ordinary sense of being a person in a place. |
Scaled from the standard dried-cubensis tables by this species’ representative alkaloid content. Because that content varies between flushes, treat every figure as an estimate and start below it. Open the full calculator.
Identification
Easiest way to tell: A persistent white ring dusted dark purple-brown with fallen spores, on a stem that bruises blue.
- Cap
- 2–8 cm, conical becoming broadly convex then flat, often with a low central umbo. Golden to reddish brown, paler and yellowish at the margin, fading as it dries.
- Gills
- Adnate to adnexed, pale grey becoming near-black and mottled as the spores mature. Edges often remain whitish.
- Stem
- 4–15 cm, white, thickening slightly toward the base, bruising blue where handled.
- Ring
- A persistent white membranous ring on the upper stem, usually dusted purple-black by falling spores.
- Flesh
- White, staining blue to blue-green on cutting or bruising.
- Spore print
- Dark purple-brown to purple-black
- Bruising
- Blue to blue-green, readily, within minutes
Habitat
- Substrate
- Cattle dung, Water buffalo dung, Well-manured pasture
- Regions
- Southeastern United States, Mexico, Central and South America, Caribbean, Southeast Asia, Australia, India
- Season
- Warm and wet months; year-round in the tropics
A dung specialist of warm climates. It does not grow on wood and it does not grow on unmanured ground. Anything claimed to be cubensis from a European lawn is not cubensis.
Look-alikes
Cultivation
Colonises fast, fruits readily, tolerates mistakes better than any other psilocybin species. The reason it dominates: it is forgiving, not because it is strongest.
Cultivation guidesSources
- [1]Stamets, Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World (1996)
- [2]Beug & Bigwood, 'Psilocybin and psilocin levels in twenty species' (1982)