Coprinellus micaceus

Description

Coprinellus micaceus is a common and beautiful mushroom. It is easily recognized by the yellow-brown caps, clustered fruiting habit, deliquescing gills, and fine, mica-like granules that adorn the fresh caps (though rain will frequently wash the granules away). Depending on their stage of development mushroom caps may range in shape from oval to bell-shaped to convex. Grows on stumps or roots of dead trees. The roots are buried, so it appears to be growing on the grass. The fungus is also associated with disturbed or developed ground, such as the sides of roads and paths, gardens, building sites, and the edges of parking lots; it has also been noted for growing indoors on rotting wood in humid environments. Although it can grow at any time of the year, it is more prevalent during the spring and fall, coinciding with the higher humidity resulting from spring and autumn rains.

Coprinellus micaceus is an edible species, and cooking inactivates the enzymes that cause autodigestion or deliquescence — a process that can begin as soon as one hour after collection. It is considered good for omelets, and as a flavor for sauces, although it is "a very delicate species easily spoiled by overcooking". In addition, drinking alcohol is not recommended the day before and two days after its consumption. This combination causes nausea, vomiting, headaches, etc.

The mycelium of Coprinellus micaceus can break down dioxins and is therefore interesting for biotechnologists from the point of view of soil remediation (Suhara H, Kamei I, Maekawa N, Kondo R (2011) Biotransformation of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin by Coprinellus species. Mycoscience 52:48-52.).

Common names: Mica Inkcap, Glistening Inkcap, Brownie mushroom, Coprin micacé (French), Glimmer-Tintling (German), Gewone glimmerinktzwam (Dutch), Gewone glimmerinktzwam (Netherlands), Hnojník třpytivý (Czech Republic).

Mushroom Identification

1. Cap

   2-5 cm, oval when young, expanding to broadly convex or bell-shaped, sometimes with a curled up and/or tattered margin; honey brown, tawny, amber, or sometimes paler; becoming paler with age, especially towards the margin; buttons covered with mica-like granules which frequently wash off with rain or dew; the margin lined or grooved, usually halfway towards the center or more.

2. Gills

   Attached to the stem or free from it; pale, becoming brown, then black; deliquescing (turning to black "ink") but usually not completely; close or crowded.

3. Stem

   2-8 cm long; 3-6 mm thick; equal; smooth to very finely hairy or granulated; white; fibrous; hollow.

4. Flesh

   White to pale throughout; thin; soft.

5. Spore Print

   Black.

6. Season

   Spring to Autumn.

7. Habitat

   Saprobic, growing in clusters on decaying wood (the wood may be buried, causing the mushrooms to appear terrestrial); frequently urban, but also found in woods; widely distributed in North America.

Look-Alikes

1. Coprinellus bisporus

   Is nearly identical but lacks the yellowish cap granules and only has two spores per basidium.

2. Coprinopsis variegata

   Has a grayish-brown cap with dull white to brownish scales; its odor is disagreeable.

3. Coprinellus disseminatus

   Has smaller, yellow-brown to grey-brown caps and white gills that turn black but do not dissolve away; it always grows in large clusters on rotting wood (sometimes buried wood).

4. Coprinopsis atramentaria

   Is a larger, gray species that grows in dense clusters on stumps or the ground from buried wood, lacks glistening particles on the cap, and the cap and gills dissolve at maturity.

5. Coprinellus radians

   Develops singly or in clumps on wood, from a tufted mat of coarse yellow-orange mycelium.

6. Coprinellus truncorum

   Also covered with glistening granules and is said to be almost indistinguishable from C. micaceus in the field; microscopy is needed to tell the difference, as C. truncorum has ellipsoid spores with a rounded germ pore, compared to the shield-shaped (mitriform) spores with truncated germ pores of C. micaceus.

7. Coprinellus domesticus

   Does not grow in such rich clumps.

8. Coprinus saccarinus

   Does not have a frosted thorn when young.

9. Coprinus silvaticus

   Does not have a densely granular cap when young.

Medicinal Properties

Antitumor effects

Polysaccharides extracted from the mycelial culture of C. micaceus and administered intraperitoneally into white mice at a dosage of 300 mg/kg inhibited the growth of Sarcoma 180 and Ehrlich solid cancers by 70% and 80%, respectively (Ohtsuka et al., 1973).

Antioxidant

The antioxidant activity of cultured liquid, mycelial extract and biomass suspension from cultures of C. micaceus have been shown to have antioxidative potential to inhibit the reaction of free-radical peroxide oxidation of lipids in rat brain homogenate (Badalyan, 2003).

Antimicrobial

The antimicrobial activity of various species of the genus Coprinus, including 2 strains of C. micaceus (VKM F-2945 and VKM F-2946) were evaluated against Bacillus subtilis AONN 6633, B. mycoides 537, B. pumilis NCTC 8241, Leuconostoc mesenteroides VKPM B-4177, Micrococcus luteus NCTC 8340, Staphylococcus aureus FDA 209P, INA 00761, INA 00762, Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Comamonas terrigena ATCC 8461, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853, Aspergillus niger INA 00760, Saccharomyces cerevisiae RIA 259, and Candida albicans INA 00763 (Efremenkova 2003).

The compound micaceol has demonstrated modest anti-bacterial activity against Corynebacterium xerosis and Staphylococcus aureus, with minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of 82.35 and 146 µg/mL, respectively (Zahid et al., 2006).

History

The species was first described scientifically by French botanist Jean Baptiste François Pierre Bulliard in 1786 as Agaricus micaceus in his work Herbier de la France.

In 1801, Christian Hendrik Persoon grouped all of the gilled fungi that auto-digested (deliquesced) during spore discharge into the section Coprinus of the genus Agaricus. Elias Magnus Fries later raised Persoon's section Coprinus to genus rank in his Epicrisis Systematis Mycologici, and the species became known as Coprinus micaceus.

The specific epithet micaceus is derived from the Latin word mica, for "crumb, grain of salt" and the suffix -aceus, "like, similar"; the modern application of "mica" to a very different substance comes from the influence of micare, "glitter".

Synonyms

1. Agaricus micaceus Bull. (1786)

2. Coprinus micaceus (Bull) Fr. f. micaceus

3. Coprinus micaceus (Bull.) Fr., 1838

Cooking Notes

The Mica Cap is considered an edible mushroom, although it does not have much flavor. You should collect only specimens that have not yet begun to liquefy. Mica caps must be cooked and eaten almost immediately after collecting as they will begin to deliquesce or dissolve into an inky black spore filled liquid within 1 to 3 hours. Cooking halts the process of auto-digestion (enzymatic process). High in potassium.

Recipe: Mica Cap Cookies

Ingredients

1. 3 medium-sized ripe bananas

2. 1/3 C vegetable oil

3. 2 t vanilla extract

4. 1/4 t ground nutmeg

5. 1/4 t ground allspice

6. 1/8 t ground cinnamon

7. 1/8 t salt

8. 3/4 C chopped raw mica caps, cleaned, dark gills cut off

9. 1-1/2 C rolled oats

10. ½-3/4 C fine-grain oat bran

11. 3/4- 1 C coarsely ground mixed dry fruit (mix is apples, figs, dates, and a few raisins)

12. 3/4 C chopped walnuts

How to cook

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease two cookie sheets. Coarsely grind the dry fruit in a meat grinder and set aside.

2. Mash the bananas in a large bowl. Use your hands to work in the oil, vanilla, spices, ground fruit, nuts, and mushrooms.

3. Add the rolled oats and ½ cup of the oat bran. Work the dough and continue sprinkling oat bran in until the dough is stiff enough to stand on its own. (Remember, mushrooms release moisture as they cook so the cookies will loosen as they bake.)

4. Use a teaspoonful of dough for each cookie - five across and seven rows down on a standard cookie sheet - and bake for 15-18 minutes. Store in a tightly-closed container in the refrigerator.

Video

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