Psilocybe mexicana

Cap: (0.5)1 — 2(3) cm in diameter, conic to campanulate or subumbonate and often with a slight papilla, hygrophanous or glabrescent, even to striate at the margin, ocherous to brown or beige to straw color in age, sometimes with blueish or greenish tones, easily turning blue when injured. Gills: Adnate or adnexed, gray to purple-brown with whitish edges. Spore Print: Dark purple-brown Stipe: 4 — 10(12.5) cm tall x 1 — 2(3) mm thick, equal, hollow, straw color to brownish or reddish-brown, becoming darker where injured, annulus absent. Odor: Farinaceous Taste: Farinaceous Microscopic features: Spores 8 — 12 x 5 — 8 μm. Ovoid and smooth. Cheilocystidia 13–34 μm, fusoid-ampullaceous to sublageniform, sometimes with a forked neck. Pleurocystidia sublageniform or absent. Psilocybe mexicana may form sclerotia, a dormant form of the organism, which affords it some protection from wildfires and other natural disasters.

Psilocybe mexicana grows alone or in small groups among moss along roadsides and trails, humid meadows or cornfields, in particular in the grassy areas bordering deciduous forests. Common at elevations between 300–550 metres (980–1,800 ft), rare in lower elevations, known only from Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Guatemala. Fruiting takes place from May to October.

Like several other psilocybin mushrooms in the genus, Psilocybe mexicana has been consumed by indigenous North American peoples for its entheogenic effects. In the Western world, sclerotia of Psilocybe mexicana are sometimes cultivated for entheogenic use. The sclerotia have a lower content of active substances than the actual mushrooms themselves.