Panaeolus cyanescens

A potent mushroom from another genus

Not every psilocybin mushroom is a Psilocybe. Panaeolus cyanescens — long known as Copelandia cyanescens — is a thin-fleshed, grey-to-tan grassland species with a black spore print (a Panaeolus trait) and strong blue bruising. It is small, delicate, and, by weight, one of the most potent psilocybin mushrooms known.

Dung, heat, and the tropics

Where the Liberty Cap wants cool European pasture, P. cyanescens wants warmth: it fruits on cattle and horse dung across the tropics and subtropics, and is a conspicuous part of the mushroom scene in places like Bali and southern Thailand, largely as a modern, tourism-driven phenomenon rather than a documented traditional rite.

A confusing common name

“Blue Meanies” is attached both to this species and to a strain of P. cubensis, so the name resolves nothing on its own — a small illustration of why common names are treated cautiously throughout this archive.

Active compounds, toxicity, and law

The actives are psilocybin and psilocin, often at high concentration. The genus also contains toxic and merely unpleasant species, and small dung mushrooms are easy to confuse; the legal and safety cautions of every psilocybin fungus apply. This page documents, and does not instruct.

Conservation

Widespread and abundant across the warm world; of no conservation concern.