The short answer
Almost every line on Culture Cave with Mak, Mac or Melmak in its name traces, by its vendor's own account, to one Penis Envy family called Melmak. The MAK page gathers the Mak-named listings in one place. The numbered ones are described as Melmak isolations credited to a cultivator known as DC Mak, so the Mak in those names can point at the person, the parent line or both.
In hobby talk you will also hear MAK told as short for Makilla Gorilla. That is the common telling, but the listings here do not bear it out: the vendors of the Mak isolates describe them as Melmak, while Makilla Gorilla appears on Culture Cave only as a named parent in other crosses. Fungus Frequency lists Space Monkey as APE x Makilla Gorilla from PsyTeamUnited, Pumpkin Monkey Business as a FaFoFruits cross of Makilla Gorilla and Thrasher, and Nakilla as Ochra x Makilla Gorilla. Read Mak as Melmak first, and let the listing tell you otherwise.
Melmak, the parent line
Melmak is listed by Dino Spores as a Penis Envy lineage isolation that produces large fruits. Sporeworks, in its Pearly Gates listing, calls Melmac "the original homestead PE variety", and Dino Spores compares Mak 529 to "Homestead PE / OG Melmak", so the three names travel together in vendor notes as the same old form of Penis Envy (compared with the other classic line in Penis Envy vs Golden Teacher).
Sonoran Spores and Telly Monster Myco spell it Melmac, which is why Mac turns up in Squat Mac, Mac Galactic and, probably, Solmac. OG, as in OG Mak, is hobby shorthand for original; Mr Rogers Labz lists OG Mak swabs and describes them simply as a Melmak iso.
Under the microscope the whole family is ordinary Psilocybe cubensis: subellipsoid, thick-walled spores with a germ pore, purple-brown in mass. Penis Envy type lines are known for sparse prints, and much of this family is listed as swabs, research plates and liquid cultures rather than as prints.
The numbered isolates: Mak 95, Mak 529 and Mak 391
An isolate is one individual picked out of a line and kept going on its own, so everything sold under its name comes from that one pick (see isolated vs multispore syringes). The number is simply the name the isolator gave that pick. It is not a generation count (that is an F number) or a ranking. None of the vendors says what 95, 529 or 391 originally referred to, and on some other lines the same style of number is a specimen's weight in grams (see the Jack Frost family tree), so read it as a label and nothing more.
Mak 95 is the most widely listed. Dino Spores sells isolated syringes and swabs and describes it as a Melmak isolation originally from DC Mak; Fungus Frequency lists a research plate with the same account; Mr Rogers Labz lists swabs as a Melmak iso from Yoshi. Mak 529 is listed by Dino Spores as swabs and by Kaiju Cultures as an isolated syringe. Mak 391 is a Fungus Frequency research plate, again a Melmak isolation by DC Mak. The DC in Albino DC Mak and DC 95 Mak Squat points at the same source.
What squat means: Mak 95 Squat, DC 95 Mak Squat and Squat Mac
Squat describes shape, not pedigree: a short, wide fruit with a thick stem. A squat line is an isolate picked out of its parent for that shape, so the parent's name stays and squat is added.
- Mak 95 Squat is a Fungus Frequency original, isolated from Mak 95 for what the vendor calls "fat, squatty fruits".
- DC 95 Mak Squat is an isolated syringe from Mushrealm USA. The name reads as the same idea, a squat pick from DC Mak's 95, but the listing gives no more detail.
- Squat Mac is a Sonoran Spores liquid culture, described as an isolation project by TKK out of Melmac that gives "massively fat and incredibly dense specimens".
Reverts: Melmak Revert and MRRL
A revert is a line that has gone back to the ordinary cubensis shape. Sonoran Spores, which lists a Melmak Revert spore print, describes it as a reverted form of Melmac: the elongated Penis Envy shape is gone and the fruit looks like a normal cubensis. MRRL is an isolated syringe from Mushrealm USA and Mushrealm UK, part of what they call their ACS collection, and the label expands it as Melmak Revert.
Reverts get used as parents too. Melmak Revert x APE is a Dino Spores swab set of a cross the vendor credits to Raymond Midichee, and the revert is one parent of the Maki project below.
More Melmak isolations: PE, TP and Thrasher
Melmak PE is a Fungus Frequency isolation with long, dense fruits, slightly bumpy stems and caps that stay mostly closed over the gills. Melmak TP, also from Fungus Frequency, is described as having dense, thick stems and meaty caps; the listing does not say what TP stands for. Melmak Thrasher is a Dino Spores swab set with the same short note as plain Melmak, a Penis Envy lineage isolation with large fruits, and no word on whether the name refers to the separate line Thrasher.
The albino Mak lines
Albino in a name means the line makes little or no pigment, so the fruit is white and the print is pale or faint. How albino, leucistic and true albino differ on a label is covered in albino, leucistic and true albino explained.
True Albino Melmak is listed by Fungus Frequency as the original cross of TAT and Melmak, and What The Fungi lists TAM, its own True Albino Melmak iso. TAT is True Albino Teacher. Pearly Gates is described with the same two parents, which is where the Melmak family and the Gates lines overlap.
Albino Monkey Mak is a cross of Albino Penis Envy and Melmak TP with very dense fruits and big wavy caps. Fungus Frequency calls it a Fungus Frequency original; Dino Spores, which lists swabs, credits the cross to Jeff Karas. Same parents, two accounts. Every Monkey Mak listing on the site is the albino form, and Fungus Frequency has carried it on into Mystique (Albino Mystery x Albino Monkey Mak).
Albino DC Mak is Fungus Frequency's albino isolation of the DC Mak line. Albino Black Mak is a Dino Spores swab set of TBC x Melmak; Dino Spores uses TBC for TAT Black Cap elsewhere, says it is unclear who made the cross, and notes the spores reached Yoshi in a trade with Zack Rhoads. Albino Monsta Mak is a Mr Rogers Labz swab set described only as a Melmak isolation.
Crosses with Mak in the name
Swamp Mak is What The Fungi's in-house cross of Leucistic Swamp Ghost and Melmak XXL. TWAMAK is a Fungus Frequency original from Tidal Wave and AMAK, a parent the listing does not expand. Solmac is a Kaiju Cultures isolated syringe with no lineage on the listing; the Mac spelling suggests Melmac, but treat that as a guess. Telly Monster Myco's Mac Galactic, which it describes as a hybrid built on Melmac genetics, is in turn a parent of Galactic Gates.
Yeti x Melmak and the Maki project
Yeti is a TAT isolation that Fungus Frequency describes as producing very dense fruits. Sonoran Spores lists Yeti x Melmak and says the fruits commonly take the Melmac shape with Yeti's ruffled, crinkled cap edges, sometimes with a large bulge at the centre of the cap.
Dino Spores pairs Yeti with Melmak Revert instead, in what it calls the Maki project. The vendor calls Maki a favourite for its green cap and white, undulating margin, but says it has refused to stabilise: the offspring keep coming out in different forms. Two of those forms became lines of their own. Bullet Bill, sold as F5 isolated syringes and as swabs, has dense stems and bullet-shaped caps that can turn green as they mature. Who?, credited to Yoshi, is in Dino Spores' words a very strange branch with "one of the most unique stipes of any cubensis isolation".
Reading a Mak label
Three questions sort out almost any Mak listing. Which pick: the isolate name or number, bearing in mind that two vendors' Mak 95 are only the same pick if they share a source. Which form: isolate syringe, swab, plate or liquid culture. Which colour: an albino line gives a pale or faint print, which is not a sign of a poor one. Every pedigree above is the listing's own account, and none is documented outside the hobby.
Psilocybe and Panaeolus spores on Culture Cave are sold for microscopy and taxonomy use only, and buyers must know their local law before they order; the US legality guide covers the state by state picture for American buyers.