Quick answer: Penis Envy is the most famous named strain of Psilocybe cubensis: a mutant line with a thick, dense stem and a small cap that barely opens, which gives it the shape the name describes. Its history is the best documented of any strain and was rewritten in 2021, when the man who developed it, Rich Gee, gave his own account: spores traced to Terence McKenna’s Amazonian collection reached Gee in the 1970s, one of the resulting lines carried a cap mutation, and Gee selected and cloned it. The long-repeated story that Steven Pollock created it before his 1981 murder is, in Gee’s words, “baloney.”
Penis Envy produces very few spores, which is why syringes of it are prized and often thinner than other strains. 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 Penis Envy spores?
Our Penis Envy 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 Penis Envy 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 Penis Envy is
- History: the story everyone told, and the one that replaced it
- How it got its name
- What the mushroom looks like
- Why Penis Envy makes so few spores
- What Penis Envy spores look like
- The Penis Envy family: APE, PE6, Uncut, Melmac, Tidal Wave
- Legal status of Penis Envy spores
- Frequently asked questions
- Sources
What Penis Envy is
Penis Envy (PE) is a strain of Psilocybe cubensis, the same species as every other named strain in a spore catalog. What sets it apart is that it is visibly, structurally different from the rest of them. Most cubensis strains (Golden Teacher, B+, Jedi Mind Fuck) look like one another and differ in shade and size. Penis Envy has a thick, bulbous stem and a small cap that stays closed or half-open at maturity, a form that a 2021 DoubleBlind history described as having “characteristics that are unlikely to exist in nature.” Those traits came from human selection, not from the wild, and they were locked in by cloning rather than by spores, because the strain produces almost none.
History: the story everyone told, and the one that replaced it
The old story. For a decade the accepted history came from a 2009 Vice article by Hamilton Morris. In it, Terence McKenna collects wild cubensis in the Colombian Amazon in the early 1970s, brings prints to Colorado, and one print reaches Steven Pollock, a Texas physician and mushroom researcher, who isolates the Penis Envy line shortly before he is murdered in 1981. The murder, the missing print and the strange mushroom made an irresistible tale, and it was repeated on nearly every vendor page for years.
The correction. In 2021 Morris said he had been “deliberately misled” by the mycologist John Allen, and Rich Gee (Richard Gutierrez), a cultivator with laboratory training in genetics from the University of Washington, gave his own account in a podcast interview that DoubleBlind then published. Rich Gee got the spores in the 1970s through his friend Jules Stevens, who got them from someone who knew McKenna. Gee says he cleaned them up and observed three lines, one of which carried a mutation in which the cap would not open properly. He selected that line and, over years, cloned the largest, most strongly blue-bruising specimens until the form stabilized. He met Pollock but says they never discussed cubensis varieties; the “mysterious penis print” story, he says, was “baloney from the very beginning.”
Gee’s account is a first-hand claim, not a documented record, and the strain’s early years still rest on memory. But it is the only version told by someone who was there, and it fits the biology: a line that barely sporulates cannot spread by prints, so it had to be carried by cloning, exactly as Gee describes.
How it got its name
Gee’s telling is specific. In 1977 the mushrooms were still called “Amazons.” He showed them to a group of strippers, who said they looked like “donkey dongs,” and one asked him whether he had “Penis Envy.” The name stuck. It has since produced a family of names in the same vein, such as Penis Envy Uncut and Albino Penis Envy.
What the mushroom looks like
- Cap: small relative to the stem, rounded, and typically remaining closed or only partly opened at maturity, so the margin hugs the stem. Color is pale tan to caramel, often lighter than Golden Teacher.
- Stem: the defining feature: thick, dense, often wider than a thumb, and frequently wider near the top than at the base, with a wrinkled or slightly ridged surface. Cream to pale tan, bruising blue readily where handled, a trait shared across the species.
- Gills: attached and mostly hidden by the closed cap; gray to purple-brown.
- Veil and ring: the partial veil often tears irregularly rather than forming a clean ring, because the cap does not expand normally.
- Spore print: dark purple-brown when obtainable, but sparse; a Penis Envy print is often faint where a Golden Teacher print would be heavy.
Why Penis Envy makes so few spores
Spores are released from the gills, and the gills need an open cap and normal air movement to shed them. Penis Envy’s mutation keeps the cap closed around the stem and leaves the gills partly malformed, so the mushroom releases only a fraction of the spores a typical cubensis does. That is why the strain has always been maintained by cloning rather than by prints, why Penis Envy spore syringes are more variable than other strains, and why several later lines (Penis Envy 6 among them) were bred specifically to restore spore production. PE syringes naturally hold fewer spores than other strains. That is a feature of the strain, not a fault in the syringe.
What Penis Envy spores look like
When you do find them, Penis Envy spores are ordinary cubensis spores: smooth, thick-walled, subellipsoid with a germ pore, purple-brown singly and near black in mass, in the species range of roughly 11–17 by 7–11 micrometers. The mutation affects the fruit body, not the spore. Albino Penis Envy spores are different: they carry little or no pigment, so they look pale next to the purple-brown spores of Penis Envy.
The Penis Envy family: APE, PE6, Uncut, Melmac, Tidal Wave
- Albino Penis Envy (APE) is the albino line. It was bred by John Workman, a breeder who crossed Penis Envy with PF Albino. His forum posts show the work under way in early 2006, and he posted “APE 1.0” in December 2007. See our Albino Penis Envy guide.
- Penis Envy 6 (PE6) is reported as a cross of Penis Envy with a Texas cubensis line, made to restore spore production while keeping some of the PE form. Its syringes are noticeably denser.
- Penis Envy Uncut is a selection in which the cap stays fully closed even at maturity, an exaggeration of the original mutation.
- Melmac (Homestead Penis Envy) is, in Gee’s account, the original line he isolated while working for Homestead Mushrooms; “OG Melmac” and “Melmac Revert” are later selections from it.
- Tidal Wave is widely reported as a Penis Envy × B+ cross from the late 2010s, inheriting PE’s thick stem and B+’s spore production; “TW/APE” and similar names mark further crosses with APE.
All of these are Psilocybe cubensis.
Legal status of Penis Envy spores
Penis Envy 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 Penis Envy mushroom?
A mutant strain of Psilocybe cubensis with a thick stem and a small, closed cap, developed by selection and cloning in the United States in the 1970s.
What is the Penis Envy mushroom’s scientific name?
Psilocybe cubensis. “Penis Envy” is a strain name, not a species or subspecies.
Who created Penis Envy?
By his own account, Rich Gee (Richard Gutierrez), from spores that traced to Terence McKenna’s Amazonian collection. The older story crediting Steven Pollock was retracted by the journalist who first reported it.
Why is it called Penis Envy?
For its shape. Gee says the name came from a group of strippers in 1977 who asked whether he had “Penis Envy.”
Why do Penis Envy syringes have fewer spores?
Because the closed cap and malformed gills release very few spores. It is a trait of the strain, which has always been maintained by cloning.
What is the difference between Penis Envy and Albino Penis Envy?
APE is the albino line of Penis Envy, reported as a PE × PF Albino cross, with white fruit bodies and pale to colorless spores. See our Albino Penis Envy guide.
Penis Envy vs. Golden Teacher: what is the difference?
Golden Teacher is a classic cubensis with a gold cap, normal proportions and heavy spore production. Penis Envy is a mutant with a thick stem, a closed cap and sparse spores. Their spores are the same size and color. See our Golden Teacher guide.
Are Penis Envy spores legal?
Yes, for microscopy, in 46 states. Not in California, Florida, Georgia or Idaho, where we do not ship.
Do you sell Penis Envy spores?
Yes: a Penis Envy spore syringe (a 10 cc syringe) with a sterile needle and a 30-day guarantee, for microscopy and taxonomy use only. We also carry Albino Penis Envy and Jack Frost, an APE cross.
Sources
- Mandrake K., “Penis Envy Mushrooms: The Origin Story” (DoubleBlind Magazine, February 22, 2021; updated March 27, 2024), including Rich Gee’s first-hand account and Hamilton Morris’s retraction. doubleblindmag.com
- Morris H., “A Nice, Thick, Uncut 12-inch Shroom” (Vice, 2009), the original Pollock account, later disavowed by its author.
- Morris H., “Blood Spore” (Harper’s Magazine, July 2013), his longer account of Steven Pollock.
- 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
Penis Envy spore syringe
Our Penis Envy 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.
