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Psilocybia / The Index / Species record

The Psilocybe Index / Species account

Psilocybe allenii

Borov., Rockefeller & P.G. Werner

Taxonomy: acceptedChemistry: Not yet researchedMolecular data: Source-checked

Selected scientific sources researched and checked by the Psilocybia editorial process. This account is incomplete; section notes define its scope. Quantitative records describe source material, never an expected species concentration. One licensed photograph added after image-source review on 14 September 2026; identification follows the credited source and is not an independent specimen determination.

01Overview

Source-checked

A wood-associated species described in 2012 using morphology and DNA evidence. This account connects the original treatment with a later genome and a study that included its mycelium. [borovicka-2012] [bollinger-2025] [waldbillig-2023]

This is a scientific reference record, not field-identification guidance.

Figure 01Field photograph
Close view of tan caps, exposed brown gills and pale stems among wood fragments.

Psilocybe allenii

2017-11-21

Source identification: Psilocybe allenii. iNaturalist observation 14375960; photograph 21373752.

Photograph: Alan Rockefeller · Source · CC BY 4.0

Resized and re-encoded; full composition retained.

02Nomenclature

Accepted name
Psilocybe allenii
Authority
Borov., Rockefeller & P.G. Werner
Family
Agrocybaceae
Publication year
2012
Basionym
Not yet researched — verification required
Taxonomic status
accepted
MycoBank identifier
564115
Index Fungorum identifier
Not yet researched — verification required
Synonyms (0 recorded names)

No verified synonyms entered. This does not indicate that synonyms do not exist.

Nomenclatural sources: [borovicka-2012] [ncbi-taxonomy-1234797-2026] [niskanen-2026]

Research completeness

taxonomy
Human reviewed — J Dale, 2026-09-29

Core name and selected treatment checked. Exhaustive synonymy and current MycoBank database verification remain pending. MycoBank 564115 is transcribed from the protologue, not a live database check. Index Fungorum access failed; its identifier is not filled from assumption.

overview
preliminary

Introduction to this scoped account.

description
preliminary

Selected primary descriptions or type observations checked. Not a comprehensive modern redescription.

ecology
preliminary

Published habitat context only; no exhaustive ecological synthesis.

distribution
preliminary

Source-backed locations only. No complete range assessment or occurrence dataset.

chemistry
preliminary

A modern study including allenii was located and scoped. Species-specific assay values and a chemistry evidence-category assessment remain pending. Pooled mycelium values are not transferred.

molecular
preliminary

Published sequence evidence only; no independent sequence analysis.

history
preliminary

Nomenclatural history only; broader historical synthesis remains pending.

conservation
not researched

Conservation assessments have not yet been researched.

03Taxonomic description

Taxonomic description. These characters are presented for scientific reference and are not intended as field-identification guidance.

Macroscopic characters

Source-checked

The original description records caps 1.5–7(9) cm across, commonly convex or nearly hemispherical and without an umbo. A white, cobweb-like veil is present when young; the tissue can stain blue. [borovicka-2012]

Microscopic characters

Source-checked

The treatment describes elongate-ellipsoid spores with a germ pore and abundant clamp connections. Cheilocystidia are mostly 20–30 × 6–8 µm; pleurocystidia mostly 25–35 × 9–14 µm. Its spore analysis used 200 spores across five collections. [borovicka-2012]

04Distribution and ecology

Source-checked

The 2012 treatment reports collections between Los Angeles and Seattle, with many from northern coastal California. These published records do not establish present-day range boundaries. [borovicka-2012]

Known range
Pacific coast of the United States, from Los Angeles, California to Seattle, Washington
Countries with documented material
United States
Habitats
Urban wood-chip landscaping, Wood-chipped gardens and parks, Coastal dune grasses (northern California)
Substrates
Woody debris, Wood chips
Ecological associations
Pinus radiata, Cupressus macrocarpa, Eucalyptus, Pseudotsuga menziesii, Alnus
Seasonality
Fruits in cold weather, from late September to January.

Ecological context

Source-checked

The authors report fruiting on woody debris, particularly landscaped wood chips in gardens and parks. Their habitat account places fruiting in late September–January; a comparison table begins the season in mid-September, so these dates are approximate regional observations. [borovicka-2012]

Occurrence records

1,118 georeferenced records, shown as 423 distinct positions at this scale. Records carry 5 country codes, 2 of which rest on a single record. Full-precision records are available from the citable source dataset.

Recorded observations are not equivalent to true biological range. Absence of records does not demonstrate absence of a species.

Occurrence provenance & map methods
Licence / retrieval date
CC BY-NC 4.0 / 2026-09-15
Coordinate uncertainty
Reported for 1,066 of 1,118 plotted records. Median 14 km; 162 records at 30 m or finer; coarsest 716 km. Points are plotted at source precision, so precision varies by orders of magnitude within this map.
Sensitive records
unreviewed
Countries with georeferenced records
US (1,105) · NZ (7) · CA (4) · CH (1) · RU (1)

Points are plotted at source precision on an equirectangular projection. Two records falling on the same rendered pixel appear as one mark; the downloadable dataset is not reduced. Records published under names this reference has not reconciled, including synonyms, infraspecific taxa and sequence clusters, are excluded rather than reassigned.

05Chemistry

Measurements belong to studies, specimens and methods. A single concentration cannot stand in for a species.

Published assays · Measurements retain their original methodological context.
Study / yearMaterialMethodRecord
No verified assay records entered. This does not establish that no published assays exist.
Fields retained in each future assay record

Study, publication year, specimen, material, sample size, provenance, analytical method, preparation, storage, psilocybin, psilocin, baeocystin, norbaeocystin, aeruginascin, units, qualifiers and methodological notes. No concentrations have been invented for this prototype.

Modern quantitative assays

Source-checked

The study used targeted and untargeted mass-spectrometric analysis. Supplementary results require a separate per-isolate extraction before quantitative allenii records can be added. [waldbillig-2023]

Evidence assessment

Source-checked

Waldbillig and colleagues included P. allenii mycelium in a multi-species chemical study. The fruiting-body group was P. cubensis. Pooled values cannot be assigned to P. allenii, and no species-specific concentration is extracted here. [waldbillig-2023]

Assessments depend on material, preparation, storage, sampling and analytical methods. Measurements are literature records, not predictions of effects.

How chemistry records are structured ↗

06Molecular evidence

Source-checked

The original study links holotype PRM 899876 to ITS accession HE994440. Its sampled allenii collections differed from cyanescens by five ITS bases. A later paper reports genome assembly GCA_040207355.1 and BioSample SAMN39911974. [borovicka-2012] [bollinger-2025]

07History

Source-checked

John W. Allen collected the holotype at the University of Washington campus on 3 November 2009. The name honours him. The original paper records “cyanofriscosa” as a provisional name rather than a validly published synonym. [borovicka-2012]

A place for the historical record

This account records the nomenclatural history checked so far. Broader historical research remains pending; interpretations must stay connected to their documentary sources.

Reading the scientific record ↗

08Conservation

Not yet researched

Conservation assessments have not yet been researched for this account.

Assessment status
Not yet researched
Assessment authority / year
Not verified / Not verified

Not researched by Psilocybia, not assessed by a conservation authority, and Least Concern are different states. None should be inferred from another.

09Images & specimens

The opening photograph is Figure 01. Its caption records the source identification and attribution; it is not a type specimen unless explicitly stated.

Photographs are not presented as sufficient for mushroom identification.

10References

  1. I.M. Bollinger; H. Singer; J. Jacobs; M. Tyler; K. Scott; C.S. Pauli; D.R. Miller; C. Barlow; A. Rockefeller; J.C. Slot; V. Angel-Mosti (2025). High-quality draft genomes of ecologically and geographically diverse Psilocybe species. Microbiology Resource Announcements 14(2), e00250-24. DOI: 10.1128/mra.00250-24 Source record ↗

    Source class: primary.

    Source verification history
    • metadata: verified · 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      Bibliographic identity inspected; publication year is distinct from retrieval date.

    • content: verified · 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      Table 1 P. semilanceata column and data availability inspected. Issue year 2025; electronic publication was 27 December 2024. Accession copied from paper, assembly not independently reanalysed.

    • doi: verified · 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      DOI and title matched against the cited bibliographic record; not just resolver availability.

  2. J. Borovička; A. Rockefeller; P.G. Werner (2012). Psilocybe allenii – a new bluing species from the Pacific Coast, USA. Czech Mycology 64(2), 181–195. DOI: 10.33585/cmy.64207 Source record ↗

    Source class: primary.

    Source verification history
    • metadata: verified · 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      Bibliographic identity inspected; publication year is distinct from retrieval date.

    • content: verified · 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      P. cyanescens comparisons and epitype treatment on p. 193. The description of P. allenii is not reused as a P. cyanescens description.

    • doi: verified · 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      DOI and title matched against the cited bibliographic record; not just resolver availability.

  3. GBIF Secretariat (2026). Psilocybe allenii — GBIF Backbone Taxonomy record 8351552; accessed 29 September 2026. . Source record ↗

    Source class: taxonomic database.

    Source verification history
    • metadata: verified · 2026-09-29 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      Backbone name record retrieved and confirmed by two independent routes: the strict name-match endpoint returned usageKey 8351552 as an EXACT, ACCEPTED species match, and the record endpoint was then fetched directly and agreed on name, rank and acceptance. The record places Psilocybe in Hymenogastraceae; that placement is not adopted here.

    • content: verified · 2026-09-29 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      Backbone name record retrieved and confirmed by two independent routes: the strict name-match endpoint returned usageKey 8351552 as an EXACT, ACCEPTED species match, and the record endpoint was then fetched directly and agreed on name, rank and acceptance. The record places Psilocybe in Hymenogastraceae; that placement is not adopted here.

  4. GBIF.org (2026). GBIF Occurrence Download: georeferenced records for Psilocybe taxa (download 0000371-260915150036944). . DOI: 10.15468/dl.dhgzxa Source record ↗

    Source class: primary.

    Source verification history
    • metadata: verified · 2026-09-29 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      Download record retrieved from the GBIF API. Key 0000371-260915150036944, DOI 10.15468/dl.dhgzxa, status SUCCEEDED, created 2026-09-15, 31,439 records drawn from 294 datasets, SIMPLE_CSV format, licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode. The DOI and the record count were confirmed against the archive held locally rather than assumed from the filename.

    • doi: verified · 2026-09-29 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      DOI read from the download record returned by the GBIF API and matched to the download key of the archive used to generate the occurrence maps.

    • content: verified · 2026-09-29 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      The archive was read row by row to generate the published maps and the per-country counts. 31,208 rows carry usable coordinates and a taxonKey this reference maps to one of its own records; 231 rows fall under synonyms, infraspecific taxa or sequence clusters and are excluded rather than reassigned. Coordinate uncertainty is reported for about 90 per cent of rows, with a median near 7 km and a coarsest value above 5,000 km, so individual points vary enormously in precision. 25 per cent of the country entries derived from this download rest on a single record, and the majority of records are human observations rather than preserved specimens; counts are therefore published alongside every country.

  5. iNaturalist (2026). Psilocybe allenii — iNaturalist taxon 348831; accessed 29 September 2026. . Source record ↗

    Source class: taxonomic database.

    Source verification history
    • metadata: verified · 2026-09-29 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      Taxon record retrieved and confirmed by two independent routes: a name query returned exactly one active species taxon named Psilocybe allenii with id 348831, and the record endpoint was then fetched directly and agreed on name, rank and active status. This is an identifier for a community observation platform, not a taxonomic authority.

    • content: verified · 2026-09-29 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      Taxon record retrieved and confirmed by two independent routes: a name query returned exactly one active species taxon named Psilocybe allenii with id 348831, and the record endpoint was then fetched directly and agreed on name, rank and active status. This is an identifier for a community observation platform, not a taxonomic authority.

  6. NCBI Taxonomy (2026). NCBI Taxonomy record 1234797: Psilocybe allenii. . Source record ↗

    Source class: taxonomic database.

    Source verification history
    • metadata: verified · 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      Taxonomy identifier and name checked. Year denotes access date.

    • content: verified · 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      Current name and species rank inspected. Used alongside the original description, not as nomenclatural authority. Cached lineage assertions are not used for the adopted family.

  7. T. Niskanen; B. Dentinger; A.M. Ainsworth; I. Kytövuori; J.T. Kim; G.W. Griffith; K. Liimatainen (2026). Re-shaping the family-level classification of Agaricineae (Agaricales, Basidiomycota) using a phylogenomic approach. Studies in Mycology 113(1), 115–134. DOI: 10.3114/sim.2026.113.03 Source record ↗

    Source class: primary.

    Source verification history
    • metadata: verified · 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      Bibliographic identity inspected; publication year is distinct from retrieval date.

    • content: verified · 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      Family treatment Agrocybaceae, Table 1 and classification discussion inspected in the PDF. Effective online date in paper: 1 April 2026; Crossref issue date differs, so the record retains year only.

    • doi: verified · 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      DOI and title matched against the cited bibliographic record; not just resolver availability.

  8. Adam Waldbillig; Maria Baranova; Sarah Neumann; Jonathan Andrade; Sharan Sidhu (2023). Exploring Psilocybe spp. mycelium and fruiting body chemistry for potential therapeutic compounds. Frontiers in Fungal Biology 4, 1295223. DOI: 10.3389/ffunb.2023.1295223 Source record ↗

    Source class: primary.

    Source verification history
    • metadata: verified · 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      Bibliographic identity checked against the publication.

    • content: verified · 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      Full-text XML inspected. Figures 3–4 captions distinguish the mixed-species mycelium groups from cubensis fruiting bodies. Pooled numerical results are not assigned to allenii; supplementary per-isolate values remain unextracted.

    • doi: verified · 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Verification source

      DOI, title, authors and journal matched to Crossref metadata and the publication.

Claim provenance

Source checks record what was inspected. Publication approval and section review are separate editorial decisions.

Core name and adopted species treatment; full synonymy is not claimed.

Fields: taxonomy.canonical_name, taxonomy.accepted_name, taxonomy.genus, taxonomy.specific_epithet, taxonomy.authority, taxonomy.publication_year, taxonomy.status, taxonomy.mycobank_id

Agrocybaceae follows the 2026 family revision.

Fields: taxonomy.family

A wood-associated species described in 2012 using morphology and DNA evidence. This account connects the original treatment with a later genome and a study that included its mycelium.

Fields: overview.text

  • borovicka-2012 — Abstract and species treatment

    Source checked · Accessed 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Checked against the cited source by the Psilocybia editorial process.

  • bollinger-2025 — Table 1

    Source checked · Accessed 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Checked against the cited source by the Psilocybia editorial process.

  • waldbillig-2023 — Figures 3–4 captions

    Source checked · Accessed 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Checked against the cited source by the Psilocybia editorial process.

The original description records caps 1.5–7(9) cm across, commonly convex or nearly hemispherical and without an umbo. A white, cobweb-like veil is present when young; the tissue can stain blue.

Fields: description.macroscopic.text

  • borovicka-2012 — p. 186, description

    Source checked · Accessed 2026-09-10 · Psilocybia editorial. Checked against the cited source by the Psilocybia editorial process.

The treatment describes elongate-ellipsoid spores with a germ pore and abundant clamp connections. Cheilocystidia are mostly 20–30 × 6–8 µm; pleurocystidia mostly 25–35 × 9–14 µm. Its spore analysis used 200 spores across five collections.

Fields: description.microscopic.text

The authors report fruiting on woody debris, particularly landscaped wood chips in gardens and parks. Their habitat account places fruiting in late September–January; a comparison table begins the season in mid-September, so these dates are approximate regional observations.

Fields: ecology.narrative.text

The 2012 treatment reports collections between Los Angeles and Seattle, with many from northern coastal California. These published records do not establish present-day range boundaries.

Fields: distribution.narrative.text

Waldbillig and colleagues included P. allenii mycelium in a multi-species chemical study. The fruiting-body group was P. cubensis. Pooled values cannot be assigned to P. allenii, and no species-specific concentration is extracted here.

Fields: chemistry.summary.text

The study used targeted and untargeted mass-spectrometric analysis. Supplementary results require a separate per-isolate extraction before quantitative allenii records can be added.

Fields: chemistry.modern_assay.text

The original study links holotype PRM 899876 to ITS accession HE994440. Its sampled allenii collections differed from cyanescens by five ITS bases. A later paper reports genome assembly GCA_040207355.1 and BioSample SAMN39911974.

Fields: molecular.text

John W. Allen collected the holotype at the University of Washington campus on 3 November 2009. The name honours him. The original paper records “cyanofriscosa” as a provisional name rather than a validly published synonym.

Fields: history.text

1,118 georeferenced records for this name in the cited GBIF download, plotted as 423 distinct positions and spanning 5 country codes, of which 2 rest on a single record. These are record locations, not a compiled range: no range has been researched for this account.

Fields: distribution.occurrence

Database identifiers for this species, recorded so a reader can retrieve the same records. The GBIF backbone still places Psilocybe in Hymenogastraceae, whereas this site follows the 2026 family revision and treats the genus in Agrocybaceae; citing the identifier is not an endorsement of that placement.

Fields: distribution.gbif_taxon_id, distribution.inaturalist_taxon_id

Habitat, substrate and phenology as given in the protologue. The named trees are the sources of the wood chips the species fruits on, not symbiotic partners; the species is described there as synanthropic.

Fields: ecology.habitats, ecology.substrates, ecology.associations, ecology.seasonality

The protologue states the range directly. It also records collections mostly within 10 miles of the ocean or bay in the San Francisco Bay Area and Humboldt County, and at least one at about 100 miles inland in California.

Fields: distribution.regions, distribution.countries