Wild species

Teonanácatl

Psilocybe mexicana

aka Mexican psilocybe · Psilocybe mexicana

A small, unassuming grassland mushroom carrying outsized history: the species used in centuries-old Mazatec, Mixtec, and Zapotec ceremonies in Oaxaca, and the mushroom from which Albert Hofmann first isolated and named psilocybin and psilocin in 1958.

Field marks

Small ochre to brown cap
Blues readily when bruised
Whitish gill edges
Thin hollow stem
Dark purple-brown spore print
Grows among moss in grass

Habitat

Singly or in small troops among moss and grass along roadsides, trails, and humid meadows bordering deciduous forest at mid elevations in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and El Salvador. Fruits May through October with the rains.

Relative potency

lowRelative only — this guide gives no dosing guidance.

Lookalikes — read this twice

The highland meadows it favours also host toxic Conocybe and Pholiotina species — thin, fragile, rust-spored mushrooms that superficially resemble small specimens. As with all little brown mushrooms in grazed, humid meadow habitat, amatoxin-bearing species cannot be ruled out on cap colour or size; a purple-brown spore print and blue bruising are necessary checks but not sufficient ones.

Deadly species grow in the same places as psilocybin ones and can resemble them closely. Never eat a wild mushroom identified from a website — including this one.