Stropharia hornemannii

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Ecology: Saprobic; growing alone, scattered, or in clusters on duff and woody debris in boreal and montane forests; often found fruiting from well-decayed wood; summer and fall; widely distributed in northern and montane North America. The illustrated and described collections are from Colorado and Québec.

Cap: 3.5-8 cm; convex to broadly conic when young, becoming broadly convex, nearly flat, or broadly bell-shaped; sticky when fresh; bald; sometimes appearing slightly radially streaked; reddish brown to purple-brown or brown when young, but usually fading quickly to tan or pale yellowish brown; often adorned with white veil remnants near the margin.

Gills: Broadly attached to the stem or, with age, beginning to pull away from it; close; short-gills frequent; pale gray at first, later purplish gray to purple-black.

Stem: 6-10 cm long; 1-1.5 cm thick; equal; dry; with a fairly persistent, skirtlike, white ring featuring a grooved upper surface that becomes dusted with purple-black spore dust; below the ring conspicuously shaggy-scaly with whitish girdles, especially when young; base attached to white mycelial threads.

Flesh: White; unchanging when sliced, or turning slightly yellowish.

Odor and Taste: Odor somewhat foul, or reminiscent of pumpkin. Taste not distinctive.

Spore Print: Dark purple-brown to blackish.

Microscopic Features: Spores 12-15 x 6-7.5 m; ellipsoid; with a small pore; smooth; brown in KOH. Cheilocystidia as leptocystidia; 40-60 x 15-20 m; widely lageniform to subutriform; thin-walled; hyaline in KOH. Pleurocystidia as chrysocystidia; 50-70 x 10-15 m; lageniform to utriform; thin-walled; smooth; with or without refractive, yellowish to golden inclusions. Pileipellis an ixocutis; elements 4-5 m wide, smooth, yellowish in KOH, clamped at septa.

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