Deconica argentina

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Ecology: Saprobic; growing gregariously or in loose clusters on the dung of horses and cows in meadows, sunny areas at the edges of woods, and so on; probably to be expected throughout montane and northern North America; summer and fall. The illustrated and described collections are from Colorado.

Cap: Up to 3.5 cm across; convex at first, becoming broadly convex; sticky when fresh, but soon glossy and dry; bald; reddish brown to orangish brown, fading to yellowish brown or yellowish; sometimes developing cracks in the pigment in old age, resulting in a mosaic-like appearance; the young margin ringed with whitish, fibrillose partial veil remnants that sometimes remain as tatters as the mushroom matures.

Gills: Broadly attached to the stem; distant; short-gills infrequent; pale to medium brown, with contrasting whitish edges.

Stem: 1-3 cm long; 2-4 mm thick; equal; dry; finely hairy or fuzzy; whitish, discoloring brownish; without a ring or ring zone after the veil breaks; basal mycelium white.

Flesh: Brownish; unchanging when sliced.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Spore Print: Dark purplish brown (Guzmán 1983).

Chemical Reactions: KOH on cap surface negative.

Microscopic Features: Spores 13-18 x 7-10 m; elongated-subhexagonal; smooth; with a large pore; thick-walled; brown in KOH. Basidia 4-sterigmate. Cheilocystidia 35-45 m; fusiform-lageniform; smooth; thin-walled; hyaline in KOH; abundant. Pleurocystidia not found. Pileipellis an ixocutis of elements about 2.5 m wide; elements smooth, yellowish to orangish brown in KOH. Clamp connections present in contextual hyphae.

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