Quick answer: Jack Frost is an albino strain of Psilocybe cubensis made around 2018 or 2019 by the breeder Dave Wombat, who crossed his own True Albino Teacher line with Albino Penis Envy. The mushroom is white from top to bottom, its cap flattens and turns up at the edges as it matures, and its gills shift from white to pale blue-grey to navy blue. Because both parents are albino, its spores carry little or no pigment, which makes a Jack Frost syringe look thinner than a Golden Teacher syringe and makes its spores harder to see than most.
Spores are legal to buy for microscopy in 46 states. Germinating them is not, which is why nothing on this page is about cultivation.
Looking for Jack Frost spores?
Our Jack Frost spore syringe is a 10 cc syringe, and it ships the same business day. Orders over $100 ship free, and our spore syringe packs save you up to 40%.
Intended use. Our Jack Frost spore syringes are sold for microscopy, taxonomy and educational use only. This guide covers the strain’s history, what the mushroom looks like, and what its spores look like under a microscope. It does not cover cultivation, effects, potency or dosing, and we do not answer questions about them.
In this guide
- What Jack Frost is
- History: the breeder’s own account
- The two parents: True Albino Teacher and Albino Penis Envy
- Why it is called Jack Frost
- What the mushroom looks like
- What Jack Frost spores look like
- Jack Frost vs. APE vs. True Albino Teacher
- Related strains
- Common mistakes in other write-ups
- Legal status of Jack Frost spores
- Frequently asked questions
- Sources
What Jack Frost is
Jack Frost is a named strain of Psilocybe cubensis, the same species as every other strain in a spore catalog. It is one of the newer names in the hobby, and unlike most older strains it has a documented origin: it is a cross between two albino lines, True Albino Teacher (TAT) and Albino Penis Envy (APE), made by a single, known breeder. Its parents give it two recognizable traits. From the TAT side it gets a white body and a wide, wavy cap that turns upward as it ages. From the APE side it gets gills that turn blue at maturity. The combination of white flesh and blue gills is what the name refers to.
Jack Frost is an albino strain, not a leucistic one. That distinction matters for anyone buying spores to look at, and the section on the microscope below explains why.
History: the breeder’s own account
Most strain histories are folklore. Jack Frost is an exception, because its creator has written the story down. Dave Wombat, a hobbyist breeder who now runs a genetics project under the name Wombat Labs, published a “Jack Frost spotlight” on his own site in October 2024. In it he names the parents as “Wombat TAT, and APE”: his own isolated line of True Albino Teacher, and Albino Penis Envy. He describes the cross as an uncontrolled one, made by using a single swab to collect spores from both parent mushrooms and putting them on the same plate. The plate was labeled “TAPE”, for TAT/APE, and the name Jack Frost came later. He waited for a second generation before he was confident the cross had taken, and says the strain “was an instant success upon its release.”
Sources disagree on the exact year. An interview Wombat gave to GreenState in May 2024 says he created Jack Frost in 2019, and other sources give 2018. Either date fits the forum record. Much of the early True Albino Teacher breeding was shared in Facebook groups rather than on the older Shroomery forum, so Jack Frost does not show up on Shroomery until February 2021, when a member asked whether anyone had information on “a variety called Jack Frost” and another replied that it was not on the TAT family tree that had been posted a month earlier. A third member recalled seeing “loads of Jack Frost pics” on Facebook the previous summer, which puts the strain in circulation by mid-2020. By 2022 it was a catalog staple, and by 2023 Shroomery threads were titled with its parentage: “Jack Frost (A.P.E x True Albino Teacher).”
The strain’s genetics have not been studied in a lab. The 2023 Current Biology genome study of cultivated cubensis, which found that hobbyist lines descend from very few founders, sequenced one True Albino Teacher sample but no Jack Frost. That paper also passes on a caution worth keeping in mind for any named strain: an earlier survey found that strains sold under the same name by different U.S. spore vendors were often not genetically the same.
The two parents: True Albino Teacher and Albino Penis Envy
True Albino Teacher (TAT) is an albino line that came out of Golden Teacher. According to the Shroomery record, a hobbyist known as Jik Fibs noticed several pure-white mutant mushrooms among his Golden Teacher in about 2017, and spent roughly a year selecting them until he had a line that was reliably all-white. Its spores, in his words, “were translucent.” A second hobbyist, Dave Wombat, isolated his own albino line from the same unstable Golden Teacher genetics, which is why the family tree lists “Wombat TAT” as a separate branch. Jack Frost’s TAT parent is Wombat’s line, not Jik Fibs’s. Two of Jik Fibs’s own TAT selections, Yeti and Ghost, are sold as strains in their own right.
Albino Penis Envy (APE) is the albino line of Penis Envy. It was bred by John Workman, a breeder who crossed Penis Envy with the 1990s PF Albino line. His forum posts show the work under way in early 2006, and he posted “APE 1.0” in December 2007. APE has a thick stem, a small cap that stays closed, gills that turn blue as they mature, and sparse spores with little or no pigment. Our APE guide covers its history in detail, and our Golden Teacher guide covers the strain behind TAT.
Jack Frost, then, is a Golden Teacher descendant on one side and a Penis Envy descendant on the other, with albinism inherited from both. Wombat himself credits APE with the strongest blue gills of any albino, and the TAT side with the open, wavy cap.
Why it is called Jack Frost
According to the breeder, the name comes from the strain’s “blue-and-white color combination”: a white mushroom whose gills go blue. Some write-ups say the name refers to caps that look crystalline or frosted. That is a later guess, not the breeder’s explanation. The cap does flatten and curl upward with age, exposing the gills, and a mature Jack Frost with navy gills under a white, upturned cap does look wintry. The “frost” in the name refers to the blue gills, not to a crystal-like cap.
What the mushroom looks like
- Cap: white, wide and wavy, opening flat and then curling upward at the rim as the mushroom matures, so that an older cap looks like an umbrella turned inside out. This is the TAT inheritance.
- Stem: white, of ordinary cubensis proportions rather than the thick, squat Penis Envy stem. Like every cubensis it bruises blue where handled, and the bruising shows plainly against white flesh.
- Gills: the signature. They start pure white, shift to a pale blue-grey, and in a fully mature mushroom turn dark navy blue. This is the APE inheritance, and it is most visible once the cap has curled up and exposed them.
- Young pins: Wombat notes that very small pins show a distinct orange hue before they turn white, a detail that surprises people who expect an albino to be white at every stage.
- Spore print: pale. Reports range from white to translucent grey to very faintly purple, and a light dusting on the cap below is easy to mistake for a flaw rather than a spore deposit.
What Jack Frost spores look like
Jack Frost spores are cubensis spores minus most of their color, which makes them harder to see than most.
- Expect a thin-looking syringe. Pigment is most of what you see when you hold a spore syringe up to the light. A Golden Teacher syringe looks dark and cloudy because its spores are purple-brown; a Jack Frost syringe holds spores that are nearly transparent, so it looks clearer and emptier than it is. This is normal for the strain and not a sign of a bad fill.
- Fewer spores. Both parents are known for releasing fewer spores than an ordinary cubensis, and vendor reports on Jack Frost’s own spore density conflict.
- Same shape and size. They are ordinary cubensis spores in shape and size: smooth, thick-walled, subellipsoid with a germ pore, roughly 11–17 by 7–11 micrometers. Only the color is missing.
Jack Frost spores look very different from those of Leucistic A+, a pale mushroom whose spores are still dark, and Golden Teacher, a fully pigmented strain.
Jack Frost vs. APE vs. True Albino Teacher
| True Albino Teacher | Albino Penis Envy | Jack Frost | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Species | Psilocybe cubensis | Psilocybe cubensis | Psilocybe cubensis |
| Origin | Albino mutation of Golden Teacher, isolated by Jik Fibs from about 2017 | Penis Envy × PF Albino cross bred by John Workman, 2006–2007 | Wombat TAT × APE, made by Dave Wombat around 2018 or 2019 |
| Cap | White, wide, wavy, turning up with age | White to ivory with blue tones, small and closed | White, wide, curling up at the rim with age |
| Stem | White, ordinary proportions | White, thick and squat | White, ordinary proportions |
| Gills | White to pale grey | Turn blue at maturity | White, then blue-grey, then navy blue |
| Spores | Translucent, little or no pigment | Pale to nearly colorless, sparse | Pale to nearly colorless |
Related strains
- PermaFrost, Jack Frost crossed with Golden Halo, a later Wombat project.
- Jumbo Jack, a thicker-bodied sibling selection, and Crooked Jack, Jack Frost crossed with Crooked Mystery; both are Wombat’s.
- KSAT, Wombat’s TAT line crossed with Koh Samui Super Strain, a sibling cross from the same TAT parent.
- Jack Frost Revert, a partly re-pigmented offshoot that appeared when the line was stressed. It drops some dark spores and is not considered stable. When you see Jack Frost described as “leucistic,” this is usually the line being described.
- Yeti and Ghost (often sold as TAT Ghost), Jik Fibs’s own selections from True Albino Teacher, which makes them cousins rather than descendants of Jack Frost.
- White Rabbit, a cross of APE with Moby Dick released by a Dutch vendor. It shares the APE parent with Jack Frost and nothing else; it has no TAT in it.
Common mistakes in other write-ups
- “Dave Wombat, co-creator of TAT.” Jik Fibs found and isolated True Albino Teacher. Wombat isolated his own TAT line from the same Golden Teacher source. Some vendors garble this into “co-creator of the TAT Syndicate,” a breeders’ group whose own site names no founders.
- “APE × Albino Teacher.” The parent is True Albino Teacher, specifically Wombat’s line of it. “Albino Teacher” without the “True” is a different, older name.
- “Leucistic.” Jack Frost is albino; its spores carry little or no pigment. Leucistic means a pale mushroom with dark spores, which describes Leucistic A+ or Leucistic Golden Teacher, not Jack Frost. Only the Revert offshoot fits that word.
- “Sporeless.” The breeder says spores are present and mature on the gills, and he restarted his own line from early-generation spores. The spores are hard to see, which is a different thing.
- “A Golden Teacher strain.” Only half of it is. The TAT side traces to a Golden Teacher mutation; the APE side traces to Penis Envy.
- “Made under controlled conditions.” The breeder describes the opposite: an uncontrolled cross from one swab that happened to work.
Legal status of Jack Frost spores
Jack Frost spores contain no psilocybin or psilocin, so under federal law and the law of 46 states they are not a controlled substance; the DEA confirmed the federal position in writing in January 2024. California and Florida restrict spores, Georgia and Idaho ban them, and we do not ship Psilocybe spores to those four states. Germinating spores is illegal under federal law everywhere. Our state-by-state legal guide has every statute.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Jack Frost mushroom?
An albino strain of Psilocybe cubensis made by crossing True Albino Teacher with Albino Penis Envy. It is white with a wide cap that curls upward and gills that turn navy blue at maturity.
What is Jack Frost’s scientific name?
Psilocybe cubensis. “Jack Frost” is an informal strain name.
Who created the Jack Frost strain, and when?
Dave Wombat, a hobbyist breeder, around 2018 or 2019. He has described the cross on his own site, and sources disagree on the exact year.
What are Jack Frost’s parents?
Wombat’s own line of True Albino Teacher, an albino selection from Golden Teacher, and Albino Penis Envy, the albino line of Penis Envy.
Is Jack Frost albino or leucistic?
Albino. Both parents are albino, the breeder calls it albino, and its spores carry little or no pigment. The partly pigmented “Jack Frost Revert” line is the one that can fairly be called leucistic.
What color are Jack Frost spores?
Pale: reports range from white to translucent grey to very faintly purple. Under the microscope they are nearly transparent and hard to see.
Why does my Jack Frost syringe look clear?
Because the spores have almost no pigment, and pigment is what makes a syringe look cloudy. The spores are still in the syringe, even though they are hard to see.
Jack Frost vs. Albino Penis Envy: what is the difference?
APE is one of Jack Frost’s parents. APE has a thick, squat stem and a small closed cap; Jack Frost has an ordinary stem and a wide cap that opens and curls upward. Both are white with blue gills at maturity and both have pale spores.
Are Jack Frost spores legal?
Yes, for microscopy, in 46 states. Not in California, Florida, Georgia or Idaho, where we do not ship.
Do you sell Jack Frost spores?
Yes: a Jack Frost spore syringe (a 10 cc syringe) with a sterile needle and a 30-day guarantee, for microscopy and taxonomy use only.
Sources
- Wietstock C., “Jack Frost mushroom” (GreenState, May 1, 2024), interview with Dave Wombat giving the 2019 date and the traits inherited from each parent. greenstate.com
- Weiss S., “Jack Frost Mushrooms” (DoubleBlind Magazine, January 5, 2024), on the APE × Wombat True Albino Teacher parentage and the upturned cap. doubleblindmag.com
- Shroomery forum archive: thread “Tat True Abino Teachers” (#26108959, July 2019) and thread #26643468 (December 2020) on Jik Fibs’s isolation of TAT from Golden Teacher and its translucent spores; thread “T.A.T genetics” (#27195023, January–February 2021), the earliest forum mentions of Jack Frost; thread #28460668 (September 2023), “Jack Frost (A.P.E x True Albino Teacher).”
- Weiss S., “White Rabbit Mushrooms” (DoubleBlind Magazine, November 19, 2024), on the APE × Moby Dick origin of White Rabbit. doubleblindmag.com
- Busby M., “The Origins of Albino Penis Envy, According to the Man Who Created It” (DoubleBlind Magazine, August 1, 2024; updated August 7, 2024), interview with John Workman on his Penis Envy × PF Albino cross. doubleblindmag.com
- Shroomery forum archive (not linked): thread #5194890, “PF Albino and Penis Envy Cross Breeding,” started by Workman on January 18, 2006, with his follow-up posts that day on recessive traits; thread #7777258, “Albino Penis Envy APE 1.0,” started by Workman on December 19, 2007.
- McTaggart A.R. et al. (2023). “Domestication through clandestine cultivation constrained genetic diversity in magic mushrooms relative to naturalized populations.” Current Biology. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2023.10.059
- Kurzbaum E. et al. (2025). “Exploring Psilocybe cubensis Strains.” Journal of Fungi 11(2):99. PMC11856550
- DEA Diversion Control Division letter on the status of spores (January 2, 2024). PDF
Jack Frost spore syringe
Our Jack Frost spore syringe is a 10 cc syringe filled in our ISO-7 cleanroom, with a sterile needle included. Orders placed by 1 p.m. Eastern on a weekday ship the same day, to the 46 states where spores are legal. You get free shipping on orders over $100, up to 40% off with our 3-, 5- and 10-packs, and a 30-day warranty. It is sold for microscopy and taxonomy use only.
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