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Microscopy spores Psilocybe Cubensis - Redboy

Psilocybe cubensis

Redboy

The cube that breaks the rule: a Florida pasture find from 1982 said to drop a genuinely red spore print instead of the usual purple-black. A collector's curiosity with a properly documented backstory.

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Sold for microscopy, taxonomy and collecting only. Not for cultivation.

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The short version

Redboy is the famous red-spored Psilocybe cubensis, traced to a single specimen Stephen Peele reportedly collected from a Cantonment, Florida pasture in 1982. Where almost every cube drops a purple-black print, Redboy is said to lay down a rusty, burgundy-red one. The line was nearly lost, revived around 2004, and modern stock often reverts to ordinary dark spores, so a true red-dropping sample is the prize.

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

Redboy is a plain Psilocybe cubensis, not a hybrid or separate species. Its one genuine oddity is spore colour.
The documented origin is a single fruitbody Stephen L. Peele is said to have collected from a pasture in Cantonment, Florida in 1982, after noticing the gills looked off-coloured.
Its claim to fame is a red to burgundy spore print rather than the purple-black almost every other cubensis drops. By the accounts that survive, it was treated as a rare colour condition rather than a new species.
Red-spored cubensis mutations have turned up elsewhere in the world, so Redboy is the documented and named example of a known phenomenon rather than a unique one.
Because the surviving line was reportedly outcrossed during its revival, much modern Redboy stock 'reverts' to a normal dark print, which is why collectors specifically hunt a genuinely red-dropping sample.

What the community says

The story goes that Peele handed a print to the well-known Shroomery grower RogerRabbit around 2004 so the nearly-lost line would have a better chance to live on.
The colourful revival tale claims the original 20-year-old spores would not germinate, so monokaryotic Puerto Rican cubensis mycelium was allowed to crawl over them in a petri dish to coax them back. Treat this as community lore.
Part of that same story has rattlesnake venom added to the agar to weaken cell walls and let the genetics mix. It is a great yarn and should be read as folklore, not method.
Redboy is widely said to bruise green rather than the classic Psilocybe blue, though how reliable that is across samples is genuinely unclear.
The name is usually read straight off the reddish tones on the cap and the red spores, but no formal naming account is documented.

The story

The cube that prints in red

Nearly every Psilocybe cubensis on earth drops a spore print somewhere between deep purple and black. Redboy is the famous exception. By most accounts the line traces back to a single mushroom that the Florida mycologist Stephen L. Peele is said to have pulled from a cattle pasture in Cantonment, Florida, in 1982. The story goes that he only noticed something was off when the gills looked the wrong colour, and that the real surprise came after he laid the day's collection out to take prints and found one of them had dropped red.

Cultures grown from that print reportedly kept the trait, generation after generation. A DEA investigation into the find is said to have concluded it was not a new species at all, just a rare colour condition in an ordinary cubensis. Peele apparently listed it through his Florida Mycology Research Center as the "red spore" cube, and red-spored mutants have since been reported from other corners of the world too, so Redboy is best thought of as the documented, named example of a known oddity rather than a one-off miracle.

Whatever else is myth here, the documented core is unusually solid for a cube: a person, a year, a place, and a spore print that came out the wrong colour.

Lost, revived, and reverted

The line nearly vanished. The widely repeated revival tale has Peele passing a print to the Shroomery grower RogerRabbit around 2004, with the original two-decade-old spores refusing to germinate until they were reportedly coaxed back by letting Puerto Rican cubensis mycelium crawl over them, allegedly with a dab of rattlesnake venom in the agar. Read that part as folklore. What matters for a collector is the consequence: because the survivor was apparently outcrossed, a lot of "Redboy" floating around today quietly reverts to a normal dark print. Finding a sample that genuinely lays down red is the whole point of chasing this one.

The species

Meet Psilocybe cubensis

Redboy 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: Redboy, 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.

Reddish, bell-shaped cap

Reportedly broad and bell-shaped, running dark red when young and maturing toward golden and reddish brown, commonly cited around 25 to 75 mm across. The red tones on the cap are part of where the name is usually said to come from.

Pale stipe with a ring

A whitish to off-white stipe, like most cubes, carrying a persistent annulus where the partial veil tears away. The ring tends to collect fallen spores and dust to whatever colour that sample is dropping.

Off-coloured, darkening gills

Crowded gills that ripen as the spores mature. The original account leans on the gills simply looking off, which is what reportedly tipped Peele to the unusual print in the first place.

Green bruising claim

Redboy is often said to bruise green rather than the classic Psilocybe blue. It is an interesting and frequently repeated claim, but how consistently it holds across samples is genuinely unclear, so treat it as reported rather than guaranteed.

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.
Check the colour yourself. Redboy is the named red-spored cubensis, so the one thing worth confirming under the scope is bulk spore colour. A true sample is reported to deposit a red to rusty burgundy print, but much modern stock has reverted and drops the usual cubensis purple-black, so pile the deposit in mass and see which way yours reads. Individual spores still look pale and amber at the eyepiece either way, so colour only really shows in mass.
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: Redboy (collector’s cultivar)
Spore print: Reportedly red to rusty-burgundy on a true sample, but often the standard dark purple-black
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

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.

It is a documented trait, not invented marketing. The original Redboy is reported to have dropped a genuinely red to burgundy print, which is exactly what made it notable. The catch is reversion: because the surviving line was outcrossed during its revival, plenty of modern Redboy lays down a normal purple-black print instead. A truly red-dropping sample is the rarer find.

It depends on the sample. A true Redboy is described as red or rusty burgundy in mass, but reverted stock comes out the usual dark purple to near-black. The only way to know is to look: take a print or get the deposit on a slide and judge the colour yourself.

Subellipsoid, thick-walled, smooth spores with a small germ pore, broadly in the cubensis size range and reported around 10 by 7 micrometres on four-spored basidia. Pale and amber individually, with the bulk colour, red or dark, only really reading in mass. Find them at 100x, study at 400x, sharpen the wall at 1000x under oil.

No. It is a plain Psilocybe cubensis. The red spores were reportedly judged to be just a rare colour condition rather than a separate species. The one genetic wrinkle is that the modern line carries Puerto Rican cubensis from its revival, which is why so many samples revert to ordinary dark spores.

Cool, dark and dry. A fridge (not freezer) suits syringes and vials; prints keep happily in a sealed bag somewhere cool. Stored well, a print stays viable for study for years.

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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.