Lacrymaria lacrymabunda

Description
Mushroom Identification
Look-Alikes
History
Synonyms and Varieties

Description

Lacrymaria lacrymabunda is an edible mushroom in the family Psathyrellaceae. The mushroom is characterized by its robust fruit body, with a yellowish-brown fibrillose cap, thick gills that produce black spores, a yellowish-brown fibrillose stem, and a persistent fibrillose-cottony ring around the stem.

The mushroom grows in grassy areas, parks, open woodlands, lawns, fields, and along roadsides. It can be found throughout North America, Central America, Europe, Northern Asia, and New Zealand.

Lacrimaria lacrymabunda is not recommended for beginner mushroom collectors due to its resemblance to other inedible or poisonous species.

Common names: Weeping Widow, Tränender Saumpilz (German), Tranende franjehoed (Netherlands), Křehutka Sametová (Czech Republic).

Mushroom Identification

Cap

The weeping widow mushroom has a 0.11-0.39 in (3–10 cm) wide cap. It is convex when young, becoming broadly convex, broadly bell-shaped, or nearly flat; dry; finely appressed-fibrillose when fresh and young. Sometimes the cap becomes more or less bald in age; grayish brown to medium yellowish-brown, fading to dull tan. The young margin sometimes hung with whitish partial veil remnants, at least when young.
Gills

Closely attached to the stem, with short gills that are initially pale but darken to grayish brown and eventually dark brown, and has a mottled appearance and whitish edges at maturity.
Stem

1.6-3.9 in (4-10 cm) long and 0.16-0.39 in (4-10 mm) thick. The stem has a fibrillose or nearly bald surface with a fragile ring or ring zone that darkens due to spores and is white on top, pale brownish underneath, hollow, and with a white basal mycelium.
Flesh

Whitish to watery brownish; unchanging when sliced.
Odor and Taste

The smell is usually pleasantly mushroomy. The taste is mild with an often slightly bitter aftertaste.
Spore Print

Very dark brown to black.
Habitat

Grows on dead or decaying organic matter in groups, alone, or in clusters on lawns, pastures, roadsides, and gravelly soil, often near recently dead hardwood trees, sometimes in wooded areas. It appears during the summer to fall season and is widespread in North America and Europe.

Look-Alikes

Lacrymaria echiniceps

Similar but has a more prominently fibrillose-scaly cap, a scaly stem, and smaller spores.
Lacrymaria pyrotricha
Has an orange colored cap skin.

History

In 1785 the French mycologist Jean Baptiste Francois (Pierre) Bulliard described this species and gave it the binomial name Agaricus lacrymabundus.

In 1887 Narcisse Theophile Patouillard transferred this mushroom to its present genus, establishing its currently-accepted scientific name as Lacrymaria lacrymabunda.

The generic name Lacrymaria means producing tears (crying) and the specific epithet lacrymabunda means an abundance of tears.