Hygrocybe fornicata

Description

A less common waxcap mushroom, Hygrocybe fornicata can be identified by its taupe color and almost always a hump cap, usually with a darker central area.

Waxcaps are often difficult to separate based on macroscopic features, so it helps a lot if a species shares one or more features with few or no other waxcaps. There are very few varieties of gray or tan waxcaps, making earth-colored waxcaps very unique.

Hygrocybe fornicata is a relatively rare find, but common in most of the continental European countries and the UK.

Common names: Earthy Waxcap.

Mushroom Identification

1. Cap

   Gray at the margin but a darker brownish gray near the center, the cap surface is initially slightly sticky but becomes fairly dry (except in wet weather) at maturity. Broadly campanulate or conical when young, then flattening but retaining a small umbo, caps range from 2 to 8cm across, sometimes splitting radially; radially finely fibrillose and sometimes slightly scaly at the center.

2. Gills

   Adnexed, adnate or emarginate, the thin gills are white or very pale grey and moderately spaced.

3. Stem

   White or very pale gray, often with rusty spots near the base, the dry stems are smooth or very finely fibrillose, mainly at the base, and of more or less constant diameter (typically 6 to 12mm in diameter) and 2 to 7cm long with no stem ring.

4. Spores

   Ellipsoidal, smooth; with some drops; 6-9 x 4-6μm; hyaline; inamyloid.

5. Spore Print

   White.

6. Odor and Taste

   Not distinctive.

7. Habitat

   Mainly in unimproved grasslands such as old lawns and churchyards but occasionally in deciduous woodland clearings; sometimes found on heathland. It is considered to be saprobic on the dead roots of grasses and other grassland plants, but it is now considered likely that there is some kind of mutual relationship between waxcaps and mosses.

8. Season

   September to November.

9. Similar Species

   Gliophorus irrigatus is brownish but much slimmer. Also, this hygrophore could be confused with some species of the genera Tricholoma or Dermoloma.

History

Hygrocybe fornicata is a waxcap whose basionym dates from 1838 when, in his Systema Mycologicum, Elias Magnus Fries described this species and gave it the scientific name Hygrophorus fornicatus. The currently accepted scientific name Hygrocybe fornicata dates from a 1949 paper (publication date 1951) by Rolf Singer. As other varieties have been described the autonomous variety is formally named Hygrocybe fornicata var. fornicata (Fr.) Singer.

The genus Hygrocybe is so named because fungi in this group are always very moist. Hygrocybe means 'watery head'. The specific epithet fornicata means arched and refers to the umbonate shape of the cap.

Synonyms

1. Hygrophorus fornicatus Fr., 1838

2. Camarophyllus fornicatus (Fr.) P. Karst., 1879

3. Neohygrocybe fornicata (Fr.) Herink, 1958

4. Porpoloma fornicata (Fr.) Bresinsky, 2003

5. Porpolomopsis fornicata (Fr.) Bresinsky, 2008

6. Cuphophyllus fornicatus (Fries) D.J. Lodge, M. Padamsee & A. Vizzini, 2013

7. Hygrophorus fornicatus var. clivalis Fr., 1857

Photo sources:

Photo 1 - Author: Len Worthington (lennyworthington) (CC BY-SA 3.0)