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Psilocybe cubensis
McKennaii
A European favourite named for Terence McKenna, famous for caps that go wavy and contorted at maturity. A plain cubensis with an uncertain backstory and a clean, dependable dark print.
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Sold for microscopy, taxonomy and collecting only. Not for cultivation.
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The short version
McKennaii is a Psilocybe cubensis line named in tribute to ethnobotanist Terence McKenna, who had nothing to do with making it. It surfaced in Dutch smartshops around the time of his death in 2000, and nobody can prove who actually selected it. Its calling card is a caramel-to-deep-brown cap that often turns wavy and contorted with age, plus a heavy, reliable dark spore print.
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 Psilocybe cubensis, a named collector's line, not a separate species and not a documented hybrid of anything.
- By most accounts it first appeared in Dutch smartshops around 2000, the year Terence McKenna died, and it became especially popular across Europe.
- Terence McKenna himself had no hand in selecting or naming it. The name is a posthumous tribute, nothing more.
- Its visual signature is a caramel to deep-brown cap that frequently turns irregular, wavy or contorted as it matures, on a thick, often-curved stem.
- It drops a heavy, dependable spore print in the usual dark purple-brown to near-black, which is why it is an easy and rewarding line to study.
What the community says
- The romantic story is that spore prints found among McKenna's belongings after his death in April 2000 were used to start the line. There is no evidence for this, and it reads as folklore.
- The more sober telling is that an unnamed Dutch mycologist simply selected a strong cubensis and named it after McKenna as a tribute. Even this is unconfirmed, with no creator and no date on record.
- A few vendors have rebranded it as a Penis Envy hybrid or a Golden Teacher cross. No such lineage is documented, and the careful sources do not repeat the claim.
- It carries a long-standing reputation as a heavyweight, often ranked above Golden Teacher or B+. Treat strain potency league tables as marketing. A cube is a cube, and bottle-to-bottle differences owe far more to how a mushroom was grown than to its name.
The story
The tribute strain with a missing paper trail
McKennaii is named for Terence McKenna, the ethnobotanist and psychedelic philosopher who died in April 2000. That much is certain. Almost everything else about where this Psilocybe cubensis line actually came from is community lore, and the answer is that nobody has produced a name, a date or a place that holds up.
Two stories circulate, and the careful sources are careful to call them stories. The romantic one says spore prints were found among McKenna's belongings after his death and used to bring the line into circulation. There is no evidence for that, and it has the shape of a myth built backwards from the name. The more plausible one is that a Dutch mycologist simply selected a strong cubensis and named it in tribute, which fits the fact that the line surfaced in Dutch smartshops around 2000 and spread across Europe from there. McKenna, for his part, had nothing to do with any of it.
The one thing everyone agrees on is the name. Who actually selected the mushroom, and when, is a blank that vendor copy has been quietly filling in for twenty-odd years.
What it actually is
Strip away the backstory and McKennaii is a plain Psilocybe cubensis, a named collector's line rather than a distinct species. You will occasionally see it sold as a Penis Envy hybrid or a Golden Teacher cross. That lineage is not documented anywhere reliable, and the more sober write-ups do not repeat it. What genuinely sets McKennaii apart is on the outside of the mushroom, not in some secret pedigree: by most accounts its caps love to go wavy, lobed and contorted as they mature, which gives mature specimens a sculptural, slightly off-kilter look that collectors recognise on sight.
The species
Meet Psilocybe cubensis
McKennaii 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
- McKennaii, 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, often wavy cap
Medium to large, caramel to deep golden-brown, conical when young and opening to convex or flat. The signature trait people single out for McKennaii is a tendency to go irregular, wavy or contorted at the margin as it matures, rather than ending up cleanly flat.
Thick, often-curved stem
White to off-white, thick and fibrous, and frequently described as curved or uneven rather than ruler-straight. A leftover partial veil leaves a persistent ring (annulus) on the stipe.
Darkening gills
Crowded, adnate to adnexed, pale grey when young and deepening to dark purple-brown then near-black as the spores ripen. The ring usually finishes dusted dark with fallen spores.
Blue bruising
Handle the flesh and it bruises blue-green, the familiar Psilocybe reaction as enzymes convert psilocybin to psilocin, which oxidises into blue pigments. Reported as a strong response in this line.
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
- McKennaii (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 contains no psilocybin or psilocin, so the spores themselves are not a controlled substance in the UK. We sell them strictly for microscopy, taxonomy and collecting, never for cultivation.
No. He died in April 2000 and the line was named after him as a tribute. By most accounts it surfaced in Dutch smartshops around that time, and there is no record of him selecting or breeding it. The position is that the actual originator is unknown.
Not according to any documented lineage. A few sellers have rebranded it that way, but the careful sources treat it as a plain, selected Psilocybe cubensis. There is no validated hybrid record behind the name.
To the naked eye it is the caps, which often turn wavy and contorted at maturity on thick, frequently curved stems. Under the microscope it is a textbook cubensis: smooth, subellipsoid, thick-walled spores, pale amber alone and dark purple-brown in mass, each with a small germ pore at one end.
Yes. It is a dependable depositor, dropping a heavy print in the usual dark purple-brown to near-black. That makes it an easy and satisfying line to work with at the scope, unlike the famously stingy Penis Envy types.
What customers say
Reviews
Quality prints.
This purchase is still being studied, so not able to fully review yet, but I've no doubt this product will be equally as excellent quality as previous purchases.
Did not arrive, so can't rate.
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If it didn't arrive, simply use our contact form and we will look into it of course.
My studies progress.
Always use Cylocybe for any materials needed. They’re always of the highest quality and all come delivered as promised, in pre sterile conditions. I would recommend to anyone starting out or experienced to give them a try. Thank you again… ❤️
More than ample spores for saturation of the medium
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Questions and answers
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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.