Cortinarius torvus

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Cortinarius_torvus.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with hardwoods, including beech and both red and white oaks; growing scattered to gregariously; spring, summer, and fall; probably widely distributed in eastern North America.

Cap: 3-8 cm; convex or irregular at first, becoming broadly convex, broadly bell-shaped, or nearly flat; dry; very finely silky or, in age, nearly bald; quite variable in color but generally lilac brown when young, fading markedly as it dries out to grayish lilac (often reminiscent of Lactarius argillaceifolius) or silvery--and eventually to a wishy-washy tan; the margin inrolled well into maturity.

Gills: Attached to the stem; nearly distant; brownish purple when young, becoming rusty brown; covered by a whitish cortina when young.

Stem: 4-10 cm long; up to 1.5 cm thick at the apex; tapering to a club-shaped, swollen base; dry; pale purple above when fresh and young but later silvery to whitish or faintly brownish; sheathed or "booted" from the base with whitish to lilac gray veil material that often terminates in a folded-over, fragile ring.

Flesh: Whitish, or with purple to gray shades in the stem.

Odor: Strong and sickly sweet.

Chemical Reactions: KOH negative to gray on cap; grayish to gray on flesh.

Spore Print: Rusty brown.

Microscopic Features: Spores 8-11.5 x 4.5-6 ; ellipsoid, with a narrowed apicular end; weakly to moderately verrucose. Cheilo- and pleurocystidia absent, but subclavate, septate marginal cells present on gill edges. Pileipellis a cutis of hyaline to brownish, occasionally encrusted elements.

#mushrooms #fungi #mycology #shrooms #mushtodon #sporespondence #floraspondence

Pluteus romellii

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Pluteus_romellii.html

Ecology: Saprobic on decaying hardwood logs and debris (especially in beech-maple forests); also found in woodchips in urban areas; growing alone or gregariously; summer and fall; widely distributed in North America. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois, Kentucky, and Québec.

Cap: 1-4 cm; more or less convex at first, becoming broadly convex or flat, often with a central bump; bald; not slimy or sticky, but with a greasy or almost waxy texture; somewhat wrinkled, especially over the center; dull brown to olive brown (often darker over the center); the margin becoming finely lined.

Gills: Free from the stem or nearly so; close or nearly distant; short-gills frequent; whitish at first, becoming pink as the spores mature.

Stem: 1.5-6 cm long; 1-3 mm thick; equal; fragile; bald, or with tiny fibers; bright yellow to greenish yellow (often brighter toward the base), at least when young; sometimes fading to whitish with a yellowish base; glossary.html#myceliumbasal mycelium white.

Flesh: Insubstantial; pale watery brownish; unchanging when sliced.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive, or faintly radish-like.

Spore Print: Pink.

Microscopic Features: Spores 5-7 x 5-6 ; broadly ellipsoid to sublacrymoid or subglobose; smooth; hyaline in KOH; inamyloid. Hymenial cystidia 40-55 x 10-15 ; lageniform to subutriform or nearly cylindric; occasionally with a long neck; thin-walled; hyaline in KOH. Pileipellis a cystoderm; brown in KOH; elements subglobose, 20-38 across.

#mushrooms #fungi #mycology #shrooms #mushtodon #sporespondence #floraspondence

Leratiomyces percevalii

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Leratiomyces_percevalii.html

Ecology: Saprobic; growing scattered or gregariously in waste places, grassy areas, and woodchips;
summer, fall, and winter; West Coast.

Cap: 2.5-8 cm; convex, becoming broadly convex or broadly bell-shaped; sticky when fresh but soon dry; honey yellow when young, quickly becoming yellowish, whitish, or dingy olive; smooth or finely hairy in places; the margin adorned with hanging white partial veil remnants, especially when young.

Gills: Attached to the stem or beginning run down it; close; whitish at first, becoming purplish gray to purple-black.

Stem: 4-13 cm long; up to about 1 cm thick; equal or tapered to base; dry; with a ring zone that darkens with falling spores; finely hairy; whitish, developing reddish brown discolorations from the base upwards; base usually hairy, with prominent mycelial threads.

Flesh: Whitish.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive, or radish-like; taste similar.

Spore Print: Dark purple-brown to blackish.

Chemical Reactions: KOH on cap surface yellow.

Microscopic Features: Spores 13-16 x 7-9 ; smooth; more or less elliptical; with a germ pore. Chrysocystidia present on gill faces but inconspicuous (more easily demonstrated in button-stage specimens than in mature specimens, where they are often absent); clavate to irregularly clavate or submucronate; scarcely projecting; to about 50 x 8 . Cheilocystidia abundant; to about 70 x 10 ; clavate to cylindric; flexuous.

#mushrooms #fungi #mycology #shrooms #mushtodon #sporespondence #floraspondence

Stereum hirsutum

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Stereum_hirsutum.html

Ecology: Saprobic on the dead wood of hardwoods, especially oaks; growing densely gregariously, often from gaps in the bark, fusing together laterally; causing a white rot of the heartwood; often serving as a host to algae; sometimes parasitized by jelly fungi; spring, summer, fall, and winter; widely distributed in North America.

Fruiting Body: Individually .5-3 cm across, but often fused together; fan-shaped, semicircular, or irregular; densely velvety, hairy, or with appressed hairs; with concentric zones of texture and color; colors variable, but generally ranging from yellow to tan, brown, reddish brown, or buff (sometimes developing greenish shades in old age as a result of algae); laterally attached, without a stem.

Undersurface: Smooth; yellowish to yellow-brown or grayish brown; sometimes bruising darker yellow.

Flesh: Insubstantial; tough.

Chemical Reactions: KOH red (or at first red, then black) on all surfaces.

Spore Print: White; difficult to obtain.

Microscopic Features: Spores 5-8 x 2-3.5 ; smooth; cylindric or narrowly elliptical; amyloid. Hyphidia with rounded to subacute apices; without projections (pseudoacanthohyphidia and acanthohyphidia absent).

#mushrooms #fungi #mycology #shrooms #mushtodon #sporespondence #floraspondence

Throwback Saturday

Today's task is to look for a snap with a #background theme. This pic from 2018 of a newly emergent shroom is as much about the #bokeh. It was shot with a a Konishiroku 47mm f1.9 taken from a fixed lens #Konica rangefinder and helicoid mounted on Sony A7ii.

#photography #macrophotography #naturephotography #fungi

#mushrooms #fungus #fungi

https://youtu.be/AQenRzXMhTA?si=Fzb-CiAdilJctNTQ

#Lichens are not just quiet organisms on rocks and trees… they’re living environmental recorders!
If you want to see air quality with your own eyes, lichens will show you how.
Watch my new video to discover how these fascinating symbioses reveal the hidden story of our environment.
#mycology #FungiFriday #fungi #mycoviruses #Science #NatureFacts #nature #ecology #pollution #forest #PHDone #academia #education #earth #bioindicators #air #youtubevideo

Melanoleuca graminicola

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Melanoleuca_graminicola.html

Ecology: Probably saprobic; found in grassy areas and disturbed soil, often in urban areas; summer and fall; North American distribution unknown (see above), but possibly widespread.

Cap: 2-3 cm across; convex becoming flat, usually with a shallow central bump, even when the margin becomes arched to create a central depression; smooth; dry; the margin long remaining curved under; dark brown, fading to brownish.

Gills: Attached to the stem, usually by a notch; crowded; white, developing slightly pinkish hues.

Stem: 4-5 cm long; up to 4 mm thick; firm; more or less equal; dry; whitish to tan; with tiny whitish fibers.

Flesh: White; thin.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive or pungent; taste not distinctive.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 5.5-8 x 4.5-6 ; more or less elliptical; ornamented with amyloid warts. Pleurocystidia absent; large, projecting cheilocystidia absent.

#mushrooms #fungi #mycology #shrooms #mushtodon #sporespondence #floraspondence

Amanita prairiicola

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Amanita_prairiicola.html

Ecology: Saprobic, appearing in grasslands, growing alone or gregariously; originally described from Kansas; distributed in North America from the Great Plains westward to Colorado, the southwestern United States, and southern California; also known from Argentina. The illustrated and described collection is from Colorado.

Cap: 5-11 cm across; convex, expanding to broadly convex or planoconvex; dry; white to pale brownish, with brownish to grayish brown, flattened warts; developing cracks and fissures in arid conditions; the margin not lined.

Gills: Free from the stem or nearly so; creamy, becoming brownish when past maturity; close; short-gills frequent.

Stem: 5-9 cm long; 1-2 cm thick; fairly equal; dry; finely fibrillose; whitish to pale brownish; with a collapsing white ring; universal veil remnants present as brownish patches.

Flesh: White; unchanging when sliced.

Odor: Not distinctive.

Spore Print: Creamy white.

Microscopic Features: Spores 10-12 x 6.5-7.5 m; elongated-ellipsoid; smooth; hyaline in KOH; amyloid. Basidia about 40 x 10 m; clavate; 4-sterigmate. Hymenial cystidia not found. Pileipellis not differentiated; cap surface a layer of smooth, hyaline elements 5-15 m wide, with velar sphaerocysts in chains.

#mushrooms #fungi #mycology #shrooms #mushtodon #sporespondence #floraspondence

Lactarius maculatipes

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Lactarius_maculatipes.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with oaks and possibly other hardwoods; summer and fall (November through January in Florida); originally described from Florida, but also collected in Michigan, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Illinois; probably to be expected throughout the oak forests of eastern North America.

Cap: 3-10 cm; broadly convex with an inrolled margin when young; becoming shallowly depressed or vase-shaped with an uplifted margin; slimy when wet; smooth or finely roughened; whitish to pale yellowish; typically with vague zones of color or texture, at least when young.

Gills: Beginning to run down the stem; close or crowded; pale yellowish; typically bruising tan.

Stem: 3-8 cm long; 1-2 cm thick; tapering to base; slimy when fresh or wet; usually with yellowish potholes by maturity; whitish.

Flesh: White; firm; appearing to yellow when sliced, due to the milk.

Milk: White, becoming yellow on exposure to air (usually quickly, but originally described by Burlingham (1942) as taking from 10 minutes to an hour to change color; staining white paper yellow.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive; taste acrid (sometimes developing slowly).

Spore Print: Yellowish.

Chemical Reactions: KOH greenish yellow on cap surface.

Dried Specimens: Dried caps, stems, and gills are bright, golden brownish orange. The oldest specimens in my herbarium have retained this color for 16 years--and Gertrude Burlingham's 1941 type collection for the species is still this color in online records.

Microscopic Features: Spores 6.5-9 x 6-7.5 ; broadly ellipsoid or occasionally subglobose; ornamentation 0.5-1 high, as amyloid warts and connecting lines that branch into short patterns but do not form complete reticula. Pleuromacrocystidia scattered; subcylindric to subfusiform; to about 55 x 8 . Cheilocystidia abundant; subcylindric to fusiform; to about 50 long. Pileipellis a very thick ixocutis.

#mushrooms #fungi #mycology #shrooms #mushtodon #sporespondence #floraspondence

Chalciporus piperatoides

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Chalciporus_piperatoides.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with hardwoods and conifers; growing alone, scattered, or gregariously; summer and fall (also over winter along the West Coast); possibly widely distributed, but more common in northern and montane areas.

Cap: 3-8 cm; convex or slightly conic, becoming broadly convex; sticky when fresh, but soon dry; bald or very finely velvety when young; shiny; dull red to reddish brown or dull pinkish tan, fading to tan.

Pore Surface: Dull brownish orange to dull reddish; bruising blue, then slowly resolving to dark reddish brown; 1-2 pores per mm near the margin and when young, becoming larger and irregular to angular near the stem and with age; tubes to 5 mm deep.

Stem: 4-8 cm long; 0.5-1.5 cm thick; more or less equal; dry; colored like the cap; bald; base with bright to dull yellow mycelium.

Flesh: Yellowish in the cap; brighter yellow in the stem; bluing erratically when sliced, or not bluing.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive; taste strongly peppery or bitter.

Chemical Reactions: Ammonia reddish brown on cap surface; brownish on flesh. KOH black on cap surface; brown on flesh. Iron salts negative on cap surface; negative on flesh.

Spore Print: Olive.

Microscopic Features: Spores 6-8 x 2.5-3.5 ; smooth; subfusoid; yellowish in KOH. Hymenial cystidia fusoid to fusoid-ventricose; to about 75 x 12 . Trama of tubes faintly and erratically greenish-amyloid when dried specimens are studied. Pileipellis a tangled layer of cylindric elements 6-12 wide; terminal elements with rounded to subacute apices; hyaline to yellowish.

#mushrooms #fungi #mycology #shrooms #mushtodon #sporespondence #floraspondence