MushroomTribes

The archive

Mushroom species

Each species page links to the cultures that use it, and covers habitat, chemistry, ritual role, and what stays uncertain. A cultural and historical reference — not a cultivation or consumption guide.

Chemistry
Evidence
A fly agaric, Amanita muscaria, with a brilliant red cap flecked with white, growing in leaf litter.
Muscimol / ibotenic

Amanita muscaria

Fly agaric · fly amanita

The fly agaric — a genuinely toxic, muscimol-bearing mushroom (not a psilocybin species) at the centre of documented Siberian ritual use and a long train of disputed theories, from Soma to berserkers to Christmas.

Historical
A Lanmaoa asiatica bolete — a pored, gill-less mushroom whose cut flesh bruises blue.
Other

Lanmaoa asiatica

Little-people bolete · 見手青 jiàn shǒu qīng (blue-bruising bolete, Yunnan)

A blue-bruising Asian bolete — no gills, no psilocybin, no muscimol — reported to bring vivid visions of tiny people. Communities in Yunnan, Papua New Guinea, and the northern Philippines describe the same effect independently, and no one yet knows what compound causes it.

Newly documented
Psilocybe aztecorum mushrooms photographed against a black background, caps bruising blue.
Psilocybin

Psilocybe aztecorum

apipiltzin (local Nahuatl)

A high-altitude mushroom of central Mexico's great volcanoes, recorded among contemporary Nahua under the name apipiltzin.

Living tradition
A brown Psilocybe caerulescens mushroom, the landslide mushroom, on bare disturbed earth.
Psilocybin

Psilocybe caerulescens

Derrumbe · landslide mushroom

The 'landslide mushroom' of highland Mexico — the derrumbe — central to Mazatec veladas and identified with the Nahua name teotlaquilnanácatl.

Living tradition
A small brown Psilocybe hoogshagenii mushroom with a small nipple-like projection at the cap apex.
Psilocybin

Psilocybe hoogshagenii

Little bird of the divine · pajarito (locally, with other species)

A small Oaxacan mushroom recorded in ethnography as a diagnostic tool among Chinantec — and neighbouring — healers.

Living tradition
Psilocybin

Psilocybe maluti

koae-ea-lekhoaba (Sesotho)

A native southern African psilocybin mushroom, formally described in 2024, reported in Basotho traditional use as koae-ea-lekhoaba — the strongest published African case to date.

Newly documented
Slender tawny Psilocybe mexicana mushrooms with conic caps, growing in grass.
Psilocybin

Psilocybe mexicana

Pajarito · teonanácatl (applied broadly)

The small Oaxacan mushroom from which psilocybin was first isolated, and one of the species addressed as niños santos in Mazatec ceremony.

Living tradition
A cluster of robust brown Psilocybe zapotecorum mushrooms staining blue-black where handled.
Psilocybin

Psilocybe zapotecorum

Hongo Santo · Hongo Borracho

A robust Oaxacan species documented in 2025 as the 'holy mushroom' of a Zapotec community — Ni'to be'ya — used for healing and divination before the altar of San Miguel Arcángel.

Living tradition