Psilocybin Mushrooms

Psilocybin mushrooms : (magic mushrooms , teónanácatl , teotlaquilnanácatl, xochinanácatl) are fungi that contain the psychoactive compounds psilocybin and psilocin. There are multiple colloquial terms for psilocybin mushrooms, the most common being magic mushrooms or shrooms.  Biological genera containing psilocybin mushrooms include Agrocybe, Conocybe, Copelandia, Galerina, Gerronema, Gymnopilus, Hypholoma, Inocybe, Mycena, Panaeolus, Pluteus, Psilocybe andWeraroa. There are approximately 190 species of psilocybin mushrooms and most of them fall in the genus Psilocybe.

The writer Terence McKenna speculated that hallucinogenic mushrooms may have a history that dates back as far as one million years ago, originating in East Africa. He suggests that early hominids such as Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus boisei, and the omnivorous Homo habilis expanded their original diets of fruit and small animals to include underground roots, tubers, and corms. McKenna claims that at this particular time, early hominids gathered psilocybin mushrooms off the African grasslands and ate them as part of their diet. He suggests that the psilocybin-containing mushrooms that were thought to have grown on the grasslands at that time were the Panaeolus species and Stropharia cubensis, also called Psilocybe cubensis, which is a famous "Magic Mushroom" widely distributed today.