Fomitopsis betulina

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

Ecology: Saprobic on the deadwood of birch trees, including European white birch, paper birch, and yellow birch; also sometimes reported as parasitic on living trees; causing a brown cubical rot; growing alone or gregariously; annual; originally described from France; widespread and common in Europe, western Asia, and North America, wherever the host trees occur; also occasionally reported from South America. The illustrated and described collections are from Michigan.

Cap: At first lump-like and nearly spherical; at maturity 5-25 cm across and 4-10 cm deep; more or less semicircular in outline; convex or broadly convex; smooth or slightly roughened; whitish at first, becoming brownish and, eventually, dull brown; with a thick margin that is rolled over smoothly to form a rim around the pore surface.

Pore Surface: White, aging grayish to brownish; not bruising; with 2-4 pores per mm; tubes to 1 cm long.

Stem: Absent or rudimentary and stubby.

Flesh: White; unchanging when sliced; thick; corky.

Odor and Taste: Odor strong and fragrant when fresh; taste usually a little bitter.

Microscopic Features: Spores 4-6 x 1-1.5 m; allantoid; smooth; hyaline in KOH; inamyloid. Cystidia not found. Setae not found. Hyphal system dimitic; skeletal hyphae 3-6 m wide, smooth, thick-walled, aseptate, hyaline to slightly yellowish in KOH; generative hyphae 2-3 wide, smooth, thin-walled, hyaline in KOH, clamped.

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Megacollybia rodmani

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Ecology: Saprobic; growing alone or gregariously on rotting hardwood logs or from buried deadwood; May through July; fairly widely distributed and common east of the Rocky Mountains, south through Mexico to Central America.

Cap: 3-20 cm; convex when young, becoming broadly convex to flat or shallowly depressed in age; dry; brown to olive brown or pale grayish brown in form rodmani; gray-brown to gray in form murina; radially streaked.

Gills: Attached to the stem broadly or narrowly; close or nearly distant; whitish.

Stem: 5-12 cm long and up to 1 cm wide in form rodmani; 5-9 cm long and up to 2.5 cm wide in form murina; finely silky; whitish; more or less equal above a slightly enlarged base--or tapering slightly to apex; base attached to copious and conspicuous rhizomorphs in form murina, or with inconspicuous or even absent rhizomorphs in form rodmani .

Flesh: Whitish, not changing when sliced.

Odor and Taste: Taste mild; odor not distinctive.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 6-10 x 5-7.5 ; smooth; ellipsoid; inamyloid. Cheilocystidia abundant; primarily clavate; to about <NOBR>60 </NOBR> long and not projecting in form rodmani; to about 80 long and usually projecting in form murina. Pileipellis a cutis of elements 4-9 wide, with brownish contents; terminal elements frequently erect, with clavate to subclavate or merely cylindric tips, 23-74 x 6-16 . Clamp connections present.

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Verpa conica

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Ecology: Probably mycorrhizal; found under hardwoods in spring (or over winter in California, where it also grows under conifers); fairly widely distributed in North America. The illustrated and described collections are from Michigan, Indiana, and California

Cap: 1.5-3 cm across; 2-4 cm high; convex or, more frequently, irregularly thimble shaped; often with a slightly outcurved margin when mature; tan to brown or dark brown; bald; tacky when wet; smooth or somewhat wrinkled at maturity.

Undersurface: Colored like the cap; when fresh covered with a whitish bloom.

Stem: 3-12 cm long; 0.5-2 cm thick; more or less equal; creamy white to yellowish; sometimes featuring more or less concentric bands of pale brownish fibrils; hollow, but stuffed with a cottony pith.

Flesh: Thin and brittle; cottony pith inside stem whitish.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Spore Print: Pale orangish.

Microscopic Features: Spores 20-24 x 10-15 m (28-35 x 18-23 m in western collections); ellipsoid; smooth; walls about 1 m thick; contents granular-homogenous; hyaline in KOH. Asci 200-250 x 15-25 m; 8-spored. Paraphyses 5-12.5 m wide; cylindric; septate; terminal cells with with rounded to subclavate or capitate apices; hyaline to brownish in KOH; brownish en masse.

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Sebacina incrustans

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Ecology: Mycorrhizal with hardwoods; growing in amorphous masses on the ground, engulfing leaves, twigs, plant stems, and so on; summer and fall, or over winter in warm climates; originally described from Germany; widely distributed in North America from the Great Plains eastward, southward into Mexico, but apparently absent from western North America; also known from Europe, Asia, and Oceania. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois.

Fruiting Body: A thin crust up to 1 mm thick, spreading in patches up to 8 cm across; surface waxy to the touch, whitish to slightly yellowish or pinkish in places, especially with age; under a hand lens appearing finely fimbriate at the edges; flesh cartilaginous.

Odor: Not distinctive.

Dried Specimens: Dull brownish yellow.

Microscopic Features: Hyphae 2-4 m wide; smooth; slightly thick-walled; septate; hyaline in KOH; without clamp connections. My collections have been immature, so the remaining microscopic details come from Breitenbach & Kr&auml;nzlin (1986): Spores 14-18 x 9-10 m; broadly ellipsoid; smooth; hyaline. Basidia 17-22 x 10-12 m; 4-sterigmate, with long, fingerlike sterigmata (to 70 m long); longitudinally septate.

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Cystolepiota seminuda

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

Ecology: Saprobic; growing alone or gregariously in hardwood and conifer forests, in humus or from well-decayed wood; late summer and fall; widely distributed throughout North America. The illustrated and described collection is from Illinois.

Cap: 1-3 cm; convex, expanding to bell-shaped or broadly convex, with a broad central bump; dry; covered with a powdery, granular dusting; white, developing reddish to pink spots; the margin not lined, hung with powdery veil remnants.

Gills: Free from the stem; close; short-gills frequent; white, becoming yellowish white.

Stem: 30-40 mm long; 1-2 mm thick; equal; when fresh and young covered with powdery material like the cap; becoming nearly bald; white when young, becoming reddish to pink from the base up; basal mycelium white and copious.

Flesh: Whitish; very thin.

Odor: Not distinctive.

Chemical Reactions: KOH negative on cap surface.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 4-5 x 1.5-2.5 ; cylindric to long-ellipsoid, or occasionally somewhat irregular; smooth; hyaline in KOH; yellowish in Melzer's. Basidia 4-sterigmate; to about <NOBR>18 x 5 .</NOBR> Hymenial cystidia not found. Pileipellis a cystoderm of subglobose, inflated elements 20-30 wide, hyaline in KOH. Clamp connections present.

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Resupinatus alboniger

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

Ecology: Saprobic; growing alone or gregariously on the recently dead wood of hardwoods; summer and fall (or over winter in warmer climates or during warm spells); widely distributed in eastern North America.

Cap: 2-10 mm across; saucer-shaped and attached from a more or less central point when growing on the undersides of logs--otherwise semicircular to fan-shaped and attached from a lateral point; fairly smooth, but sometimes with fine grayish fuzz in places; flat black to dark gray-brown.

Gills: Radiating from the variable point of attachment (see cap description); close or nearly distant; black to dark blackish brown; sometimes with whitish edges.

Stem: Absent.

Flesh: Blackish; insubstantial.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive; taste mild.

Chemical Reactions: KOH on cap surface negative.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 5.5-8 x 2.5-4 ; long-elliptical to nearly allantoid; smooth; inamyloid. Cheilocystidia fusoid to broadly fusoid, lecythiform, or clavate; to about 25 x 10 ; often (but not always) digitate with irregular knobs and projections. Pleurocystidia absent. Pileipellis a poorly defined cutis of dark brown, encrusted elements 2.5-6 wide, digitate with knobs and projections.

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Boletopsis leucomelaena

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

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with spruces; growing alone, scattered, or gregariously; summer and fall; North American distribution uncertain, but possibly to be expected wherever spruces occur naturally. The illustrated and described collection is from a spruce forest in Colorado.

Cap: 5-8 cm across; convex becoming planoconvex; dry; fairly bald; gray to dark gray or nearly black; sometimes somewhat mottled or streaked in appearance.

Pore Surface: Running down the stem; creamy white, becoming slightly brownish with age; bruising slowly pinkish, then brownish; pores angular, 2-3 per mm; tubes 1-2 mm deep.

Stem: 3-5 cm long; 1.5-2.5 cm thick; bald or, in age, finely scaly; colored like the cap, except at the whitish apex; tough; sometimes with orangish fuzz at the base.

Flesh: Whitish; staining pinkish gray to lilac gray when sliced, especially near the cap margin.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive; taste not distinctive, or slightly bitter.

Chemical Reactions: KOH on cap surface black.

Spore Print: Pale yellowish brown.

Microscopic Features: Spores 4-5 x 3-4 ; angular and irregular in outline; nodulose; yellowish in KOH. Hyphal system monomitic. Pileipellis composed of tangled and interwoven, clamped hyphae 2.5-7.5 wide, brownish to hyaline in KOH, with infrequent swollen, pyriform terminal cells.

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Heterobasidion annosum

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

Ecology: Parasitic on the wood of conifers (rarely on hardwoods) and saprobic on deadwood; causing a white pocket rot of the roots and butt; annual or perennial; growing alone or gregariously at the bases of trees; appearing year-round; widely distributed in North America but rare in the central Rocky Mountains.

Fruiting Body: Variable: sometimes merely a spreading pore surface; sometimes with a folded-over edge of a cap; sometimes with a poorly to well developed cap.

Cap: When present up to 25 cm across and 15 cm deep; shelf-like to kidney-shaped or irregular; finely velvety or bald; roughened and cracked; brown to dark brown or black, with a whitish margin and a reddish to reddish brown marginal zone; sometimes hosting moss or algae.

Pore Surface: Creamy to pinkish, orangish, or yellowish; not bruising appreciably; with 4-5 circular to angular pores per mm; tube layers often indistinct, to 3 mm thick.

Stem: Absent.

Flesh: White; corky to woody.

Odor: Not distinctive.

Chemical Reactions: KOH negative on flesh.

Spore Print: Presumably white.

Microscopic Features: Spores 4.5-6.5 x 3.5-8 ; smooth or very finely roughened; subglobose to ovoid; hyaline in KOH; inamyloid. Cystidia absent. Hyphal system dimitic; skeletal hyphae dextrinoid.

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Agaricus nanaugustus

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Ecology: Saprobic; growing gregariously under Norway spruce, blue spruce, and other trees, including oaks, primarily in urban settings; summer and fall; originally described from Pennsylvania (Kerrigan 2016); possibly distributed throughout eastern North America. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois and New York.

Cap: 5-19 cm; convex at first, becoming broadly convex or nearly flat; dry; when young brownish orange to orangish brown, and radially fibrillose; soon becoming scaly with orangish brown to golden brown, fibrillose scales over a pale golden or orangish surface; the margin not lined, yellowing when rubbed repeatedly.

Gills: Free from the stem; close or crowded; short-gills frequent; pinkish when young, becoming dark brown with maturity; covered with a whitish, shaggy partial veil when in the button stage.

Stem: 5-10 cm long; 1-2.5 cm thick; equal above a slightly swollen base; fibrillose to somewhat shaggy, especially toward the base; with a thick, rubbery, white to yellowish ring; whitish; bruising slightly reddish brown; basal mycelium white.

Flesh: White; firm; unchanging when sliced, or becoming yellowish to orangish.

Odor and Taste: Strong; reminiscent of almonds.

Dried Specimens: Cap and stem dull orangish.

Chemical Reactions: KOH yellow on cap surface.

Spore Print: Dark brown.

Microscopic Features: Spores: 6-8 x 4-5 m; ellipsoid; smooth; thick-walled; brown in KOH; brown in Melzer's. Basidia 24-28 x 4-5 m; clavate; 4-sterigmate. Pleurocystidia not found. Cheilocystidia 10-25 x 6-15 m; mutliseptate and catenulate; terminal elements subglobose to clavate; smooth; thin-walled; orange-brown to hyaline in KOH; soon collapsing. Pileipellis a cutis; elements 5-7.5 m wide, smooth, golden yellow or hyaline in KOH.

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Inocybe calospora

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

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with hardwoods; growing gregariously (according to Kauffman, "usually . . . in patches of about a dozen," which aptly describes my collection); summer and fall; widely distributed in eastern North America.

Cap: 1-3 cm; conical at first, becoming broadly bell-shaped or flat with a pointy central bump; dry; scaly; dark brown to brown.

Gills: Attached to the stem (sometimes by a notch) or nearly free from it; close or nearly distant; whitish to pale tan, becoming medium brown or cinnamon brown, with white edges.

Stem: 2-6 cm long; up to 3 mm thick; more or less equal, with a small basal bulb; dry; very finely hairy; usually pale cinnamon brown to pale reddish brown (sometimes whitish or dark brown); fairly tough; basal mycelium white.

Flesh: Yellowish to brownish; insubstantial.

Odor: Slightly sweet and fragrant, or not distinctive.

Chemical Reactions: KOH on cap surface negative to slightly pinkish.

Spore Print: Brown.

Microscopic Features: Spores 9.5-13.5 x 8.5-11 (including ornamentation); round or nearly so; covered with prominent spines 2-3 long. Pleurocystidia scattered; up to 55 x 17 ; fusoid or clavate, often with a flattened apex; thick-walled; sparsely apically encrusted.

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