Description
Blue Meanies Magic Mushrooms
“Blue Meanie” is a name applied to at least two different mushrooms. One is a strain of Psilocybe cubensis. The other is the species Panaeolus cyanescens which is consider the “real” Blue Meanie. Both are psychoactive and sometimes used recreationally or medicinally, but it’s important not to confuse the two (though be careful, as some writers do mix them up). For one thing, Panaeolus cyanescens is dramatically more potent and therefor requires different dosing guidelines. Here we’re going to talk about Blue Meanie, the P. cubensis strain.
There are many cultivated strains of P. cubensis, some of them collected from the wild and some developed by growers. Blue Meanie is thought to be one of the former, having been collected from Australia. It does, indeed, bruise bluish if handled, but it’s not especially mean (it’s also not at all Meanie-like, a reference those who have seen the movie, Yellow Submarine, will understand).
P.cubensis, and all its various strains, is what people usually mean by phrases like “shrooms” or “magic mushrooms.” It’s not the only hallucinogenic mushroom species around—there are dozens of others that likewise contain significant amounts of psilocybin, plus some of the Amanitas contain a very different psychoactive substance, moscimol—but it may be the most popular. It grows wild across much of the world and feeds on the dung of mammals (it can be cultivated on other substrates, though). Its fruiting bodies are typically medium-sized with light-brown caps and a webby partial veil that tears just before spore release. But there is a lot of natural variation in color, size, cap shape, and psilocybin concentration.
There is some debate about whether different strains produce different kinds of trip. Certainly, trip experiences vary widely, but at least part of that is due to variation in the biochemistry of the users, as well as the specifics of their set and setting. Some people say that a cube is a cube, and that while the strains differ from each other in potency, their trips have no consistent, recognizable character apart from their identity as P. cubensis.
