New African fungi provides clues on how ‘magic mushrooms’ conquered the world

The fungus Psilocybe cubensis — colloquially known as cubes, gold tops or gold caps in Australia — is the most prolific hallucinogenic mushroom on the planet.

Its psychoactive compound psilocybin is an illegal drug in most parts of the world, so research into where the species came from and how it spread is limited.

But a new study, not yet peer reviewed but published on the biological sciences repository bioRxiv, suggests an ancestor of P. cubensis could have come from Africa before spreading far and wide.

The study unveils a psychoactive mushroom that looks like P. cubensis but is new to Western science.

Samples of the unnamed species were collected in Zimbabwe and South Africa and their genetic blueprint compared to P. cubensis.

Study co-author Bryn Dentinger, the mycology curator at the Natural History Museum of Utah, said the new species, provisionally named Psilocybe ochraceocentrata, is the closest wild relative to P. cubensis discovered so far.

“We estimate they diverged [from a common ancestor] around 1.5 million years ago,” he said.

“So, by comparison, they are roughly the same relatedness as chimps and bonobos are to each other.

“Knowing the closest wild relative of P. cubensis provides information on its origin and evolution.”

Australian mycologist Alistair McTaggart, from the private company Psymbiotika Lab and who was not involved with new research, said the study supports the hypothesis that P. cubensis could have an African origin.

Dr McTaggart and Dr Dentinger agree that if the new species could be bred with P. cubensis, the hybrid offspring may lead to the development of new psilocybin therapies.

How did ‘gold top’ mushrooms move around the world?

Psilocybes, a group which includes many species of psychedelic mushrooms with gills, first emerged 67 million years ago.

A common ancestor of P. cubensis and P. ochraceocentrata could have evolved alongside large herbivores in East Africa as far back as 1.8 million years ago, the study suggests.

“Bovids [cloven-hoofed grazing mammals] in particular were abundant and transforming the landscape to create and maintain grasslands and savannas in parts of Africa,” Dr Dentinger said.

And it was about this time that the ancient human species Homo erectus started migrating out of Africa and into Eurasia alongside bovids.

Mushroom spores transported on bovid hoofs or dropped in poo could then explain how the ancestral Psilocybe species spread then diverged in Africa and Asia.

Broad ecological modelling for the study suggested P. cubensis could have been found in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Australasia between 2.55 million and 710,000 years ago.

The late Mexican mycologist and Psilocybe expert Gastón Guzmán thought P. cubensis arrived in the Americas with cattle and Europeans around the year 1500.

The new study suggests the mushrooms could have arrived before Europeans when bison migration waves started 190,000 years ago.

These are just theories, though. Dr Dentinger said where exactly the two mushroom species and their common ancestor originated was still speculative for the moment.

“We are also pursuing population genetic studies to try and pinpoint the origin and spread of P. cubensis,” he said.

When did magic mushrooms reach Australia?

It’s not clear when P. cubensis first arrived in Australia but a study last year suggested it was introduced with domesticated cattle.

One of the first Western recordings of suspected magic mushroom use in Australia came from the mycologist Sir John Burton Cleland.

He wrote in 1934, in a South Australian fungi handbook, about how some “toadstools” gave rise to a kind of intoxication.

“A former colleague of mine told me how his parents ate once a dish of mushrooms,” Cleland wrote.

“And as the meal progressed they gradually became more and more hilarious, the most simple remark giving rise to peals of laughter.

“The intoxication passed off without any unpleasant effects. Probably some poisonous kind had been included, possibly one of the dung-inhabiting species.”

The mushrooms consumed at the dinner could have been a local Australian species but may have been P. cubensis.

Australasia is home to several species of endemic magic mushrooms, such as Psilocybe subaeruginosa, which are also known as “subs”. They prefer to live on deteriorating wood over dung.

A recent study led by Dr McTaggart found subs, which have a high concentration of psylocibin and can cause temporary paralysis, have invaded parts of the Northern Hemisphere but are described as different species of mushrooms.

“This is one species in Australia and it should be a name applied to the Northern Hemisphere,” he said.