A new species of magic mushrooms has been discovered in Germany, aptly named Psilocybe germanica.

It boggles the mind. Despite the extent of human colonisation, the advanced nature of science, and the human desire to catalogue and document everything possible, we are still discovering new species of life every day. In fact, if recent figures are anything to go by, we are discovering around 20,000 new species of life on our planet each year! The thing is though, not all of these species are being discovered in places where man is yet to tread; some of them can be found where humans have been living for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

An example of this is the newly discovered Psilocybe Germanica. As the name would suggest, this is a new species of psilocybin containing magic mushroom, discovered in Germany. To the layman, this recent discovery may look like any other type of wild mushroom, but this new species has a unique combination of features in its structure, creating “joint like thickening” which has not been seen in any other till now. It is also quite a fragile species, easily blueing with age, frost, or bruising. Despite this, we can probably expect Psilocybe Germanica to spread far and wide (if it hasn’t already), as it thrives in wood chip and mulch – which are very common in modern European parks and gardens.

A: Psilocybe azurescens. B: Psilocybe cyanescens. C: Psilocybe germanica.

This is all well and good, but we are pretty sure many of you want to know about psychoactive content. Well, according to a lab report, Psilocybe Germanica contain “high” amounts of both psilocybin and baeocystin. Psilocybin is the main hallucinogenic compound of magic mushrooms, whilst beaocystin is thought to be its analogue.

Either way, it looks like there is a new kid on the block. If you want to find out the exact specifics of this new mushroom, you can check out the scientific paper outlining its specifics here.