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Psilocybe cubensis
Cambodian
A wild Southeast Asian cube tied to the temples of Angkor Wat, with caramel-cinnamon caps and a dense, dependable purple-brown spore print that makes it a satisfying strain to put under glass.
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Sold for microscopy, taxonomy and collecting only. Not for cultivation.
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The short version
Cambodian is a Psilocybe cubensis line said to trace back to wild mushrooms collected in cattle dung near the Angkor Wat temples in Siem Reap, reportedly by the ethnomycologist John W. Allen. It is a plain wild-type cube, not a hybrid and not an albino, with warm caramel-cinnamon caps and a heavy, well-defined dark purple-brown spore drop that prints cleanly for study.
Straight talk
Fact vs. legend
There is a lot of folklore around this strain. Here is which bits are real, side by side.
What we actually know
- It is a plain wild-type Psilocybe cubensis, a geographic collection line rather than a hybrid or a separate species.
- By most accounts it traces to wild mushrooms found growing in cattle dung near the Angkor Wat temple complex in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
- It is widely credited to the ethnomycologist John W. Allen, a genuinely documented researcher and the namesake of Psilocybe allenii.
- It drops a heavy, well-defined dark purple-brown spore print, the standard for the species, which is why collectors find it a satisfying strain to study.
- Like every cubensis it bruises blue-green where the flesh is handled, the classic Psilocybe reaction.
What the community says
- The strain is named for its supposed collection site, the temples of Angkor Wat, though a strain name only records collection history and not a separate biology.
- Allen is said to have gathered it on the same Cambodian trip that he collected the dung-loving Copelandia (Panaeolus), then made prints that spread the line to vendors. Treat the exact retelling as community lore.
- Sources cannot agree on a date, with the collection placed anywhere from the early 1990s to around the year 2000, so pin the year down loosely at best.
- It is often talked up as one of the fastest, most vigorous lines going. That is a hobbyist's cultivation claim and has nothing to do with the dormant spores in a vial.
The story
A cube from the temple country
Most cubensis strain names are pure marketing, but Cambodian comes with an origin story that is unusually easy to take seriously. By most accounts the line traces to wild Psilocybe cubensis found growing in cattle dung near the Angkor Wat temple complex in Siem Reap, in the hot, humid lowlands of Cambodia. That is exactly the kind of place this mushroom thrives, a warm climate full of grazing animals, which is the whole reason a temperate hobby ended up chasing tropical dung-lovers around the world.
The collector usually named is John W. Allen, the ethnomycologist better known as "Mushroom John". Unlike the anonymous figures behind a lot of strain folklore, Allen is a real, documented researcher, the namesake of Psilocybe allenii and the first to formally collect several Southeast Asian psilocybes. He is said to have made dense spore prints from his finds and passed them out, and from there the Cambodian line spread to vendors and into the wider collecting scene.
The gap in the story is the date. Sources put the collection anywhere from the early 1990s to around 2000, so treat the exact year as community lore rather than a fact you could cite.
What it actually is
For all the temple romance, there is nothing exotic about the mushroom itself. Cambodian is a plain wild-type cubensis, not a hybrid, not an albino, and not a separate species. The Angkor backstory is geography, not biology. What you get is a sturdy, good-looking cube with warm caps and a generous, clean spore drop, which is really all a collector wants from a study line. Allen reportedly gathered a blue-staining Copelandia on the same trip, a completely different mushroom, so do not let the shared origin tale blur the two together.
The species
Meet Psilocybe cubensis
Cambodian is a collector’s line of a single, well-travelled species. Psilocybe cubensis was first written up in 1906 by the American mycologist Franklin Sumner Earle, from a specimen found in a cattle field in Cuba, which is where the name comes from. He originally called it Stropharia cubensis; Rolf Singer moved it into the genus Psilocybe in 1948.
The genus name is a tidy bit of Greek: psilos (“bare”) plus kubē (“head”), for the smooth, peelable skin of the cap, so the full name reads roughly as “the bare-headed mushroom from Cuba.”
- Family
- Hymenogastraceae (older books say Strophariaceae)
- Genus
- Psilocybe (Fr.) P. Kumm., 1871
- Species
- Psilocybe cubensis (Earle) Singer, 1948
- Basionym
- Stropharia cubensis Earle, 1906
- This product
- Cambodian, a collector’s cultivar of the species
- Type locality
- Cuba (where it was first named)
How you’d know it
Field marks
These describe the mature mushroom for reference and identification.
Caramel-cinnamon cap
Convex when young, opening to broadly convex or flat with maturity and often keeping a low central bump. Dark cinnamon-brown to caramel, fading toward golden or pale yellow at the rim, and reportedly a fair size at 50 to 75 mm across.
Thick white stem
Tall, dense and fibrous, white to off-white. A leftover partial veil leaves a ring (annulus) around the upper stipe that usually ends up dusted purple-brown where the print falls on it.
Darkening gills
Crowded and pale greyish when young, deepening to a rich purplish-grey and then near-black as the spores ripen on the basidia. The colour change is your cue the print is ready.
Blue bruising
Handle or damage the flesh and it bruises blue-green, the enzyme reaction that turns psilocybin to psilocin and on to blue pigments. Textbook Psilocybe, and shared by every cubensis.
Where it comes from
A dung-lover with a wanderer’s history
Psilocybe cubensis is coprophilic, a fancy word for dung-loving. In the wild it lives on the droppings of big grazing animals, classically cattle and water buffalo, fruiting from warm, humid pasture. It does not grow on wood and it does not partner with tree roots.
You’ll find it across the warm parts of the world: the Gulf Coast of the United States, Mexico, Central and South America, Southeast Asia and Australia. It was named from Cuba, but where the lineage truly began is an open question. A 2026 study describing its closest wild relative in southern Africa suggests the deep roots are Old-World, the mushroom having apparently travelled with grazing herds long before anyone gave it a Latin name.
The main event
Under the microscope
This is what you actually bought the spores for. Put a print or a drop from a syringe on a slide and here’s what shows up.
- Shape & size. Smooth, thick-walled and subellipsoid, like a slightly squashed rugby ball, roughly 11.5–17 µm long by 8–11 µm wide (the figures Paul Stamets settled on).
- The germ pore. Look for a single pale, flattened dot at one end. That’s the one thin spot in the wall where, in nature, a mushroom would begin, and a real cubensis hallmark.
- Pale alone, dark in a crowd. A single spore looks honey-amber with the light behind it; only in a mass do they read deep purple-brown to black. So a near-black print but pale spores on the slide is normal optics, not a dud.
- What you’ll need. Find the field at 100×, study shape and the germ pore at 400×, and get the wall crisp at 1000× under oil. A touch of methylene blue or KOH lifts the contrast.
- The legal bit, and why it’s true. A dormant spore carries no psilocybin or psilocin at all; that chemistry only appears later in living tissue. That is exactly why the spores are legal to own and study in the UK.
Choose your format
Print, syringe, vial or swab?
Same lab-grade genetics in every option. The honest difference is shelf life versus how soon you’re at the scope.
Spore print
Keeps longest
Spores dropped straight onto sterile foil. Stored cool and dry it outlasts everything else here, so it’s the one to reach for if you’re building a collection to keep for years.
Spore syringe
Ready tonight
Spores suspended in sterile water, ready to go straight onto a slide. The quickest way to be looking down the microscope this evening. Comes in 3 mL and 12 mL.
Vial & swab
Compact
A sealed glass vial is a tidy middle ground; a sterile swab is the most travel-friendly, robust little format for adding a strain to your reference set.
At a glance
The spec sheet
- Species
- Psilocybe cubensis
- Strain
- Cambodian (collector’s cultivar)
- Spore print
- Dark purple-brown to near-black, heavy depositor
- Spore shape
- Subellipsoid, smooth, thick-walled, with a germ pore
- Spore size
- ~11.5–17 × 8–11 µm
- Basidia
- Mostly 4-spored, ~20–30 × 7–10 µm
- Wild habitat
- Coprophilic, on herbivore dung & warm pasture
- Climate
- Subtropical to tropical
- Intended use
- Microscopy, research & collecting only
Dig deeper
Further reading
Independent, non-commercial sources, no shops, just good information.
- Psilocybe cubensis on Wikipedia: the species overview.
- The genus Psilocybe: taxonomy and the family reshuffle.
- Index Fungorum: the formal nomenclature record.
- Proc. Royal Society B (2026): the African wild-relative study.
Common questions
Frequently asked
Yes, for microscopy and research. A dormant spore carries no psilocybin or psilocin, so the spores themselves are not a controlled substance in the UK. We supply them strictly for microscopy, taxonomy and collecting, never for cultivation.
No. It is a plain wild-type Psilocybe cubensis. The name simply records where the line is said to have been collected, near Angkor Wat in Cambodia. It is not crossed with anything and it is not a distinct species.
That is the story most sources tell, and Allen is a genuinely documented ethnomycologist, so it is more credible than most strain lore. The catch is the date, which is reported anywhere from the early 1990s to around 2000. We would call the broad story likely and the exact details community lore.
Smooth, thick-walled, subellipsoid spores, pale amber on their own and dark purple-brown in a mass, each with a small flattened germ pore at one end. Locate them at 100x, study them at 400x, and bring the wall into focus at 1000x under oil.
Yes. Cambodian is a heavy, reliable depositor that drops a dense, well-defined dark purple-brown print, which is exactly what you want for a clean reference sample or a sharp slide.
Cool, dark and dry. A fridge (not a freezer) suits syringes and vials, while a print keeps happily in a sealed bag somewhere cool. Stored well, a print stays useful for study for years.
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For microscopy, taxonomy and collecting only.Sold for legal research. Not for cultivation. Spores contain no controlled substances. We trust you to be responsible.