Hygrophorus chrysodon
Description
Hygrophorus chrysodon is a species of fungus in the genus Hygrophorus. It is edible but bland in taste. Sporting a white, viscid cap decorated with yellow granules, Hygrophorus chrysodon is one of the easiest to recognize mid-winter mushrooms. For the beginning mushroomer, the widely spaced, waxy, white decurrent gills and white spores will help to identify this mushroom as belonging to the genus Hygrophorus. The distinctive yellow granules may weather away in age, especially those on the cap, but usually persist on the stipe apex.
Common names: Golden-Tooth Waxcap, Flaky Waxy-Cap, Golden-Fringed Waxy-Cap, Gold Flecked Woodwax.
Mushroom Identification
Ecology
Mycorrhizal with conifers (and rarely reported with hardwoods on the West Coast); growing alone, scattered, or gregariously; summer and fall (overwinter in warmer climates); widely distributed in North America.
Cap
1.5-6 cm; convex when young, becoming broadly convex, broadly bell-shaped, or more or less flat; slimy when fresh; white when young and fresh, overlaid with yellow to golden or orange-yellow granules along the margin; becoming yellow overall with age; the margin at first inrolled.
Gills
Broadly attached to the stem or beginning to run down it; close or nearly distant; white; short-gills frequent.
Stem
3-10 cm long; 3-12 mm thick; equal above, but tapering to base; when fresh sheathed with slime, at least over the lower portion; the apex dotted with granules like those on the cap margin, sometimes aggregated into an imperfect ring zone; whitish overall.
Flesh
White; unchanging; soft.
Odor and Taste
Odor not distinctive, or somewhat unpleasant; taste not distinctive.
Chemical Reactions
KOH bright yellow on stem, cap surface, or flesh.
Spore Print
White.
Microscopic Features
Spores 7-10 x 3.5-4.5 µ; smooth; long-ellipsoid; hyaline in KOH; inamyloid. Basidia 4-sterigmate; 45-55 µ long. Hymenial cystidia absent. Lamellar trama divergent. Pileipellis an ixocutis.
Similar Species
Hygrophorus eburneus is similar to Hygrophorus chrysodon when the granules of the latter wash away, but H. chrysodon is more slender, the cap does not darken beyond cream, the cap is not very viscid, and the odor is different. Hygrophorus gliocyclus is similar to Hygrophorus chrysodon if the granules of the latter wash away, but H. gliocyclus is distinctly slimy and is associated particularly with pine.
History
The basionym of this species was established in 1838, when German naturalist August Johann Georg Karl Batsch (1761 - 1802) described this woodwax under the binomial scientific name Agaricus chrysodon. It was the famous Swedish mycologist Augustus Magnus Fries who, in 1838, transferred this species to its present genus, establishing its currently-accepted scientific name Hygrophorus chrysodon.
Synonyms of Hygrophorus chrysodon include Agaricus chrysodon Batsch, and Hygrophorus chrysodon var. leucodon Alb. & Schwein.
Hygrophorus, the genus name, comes from hygro- meaning moisture, and -phorus meaning bearer; not only do these fungi contain a lot of water (as do most other mushrooms, of course) but they are also moist and sticky or slimy.
The specific epithet chrysodon comes from chryso- meaning golden and -don meaning tooth - and sure enough the caps and stems of these fungi are adorned with tooth-like golden yellow scales.
Photo sources:
Photo 1 - Author: Hygrophorus_chrysodon,_Caspar.jpg: (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo 2 - Author: Ryane Snow (snowman) (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo 3 - Author: Johannes Harnisch (Johann) (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo 4 - Author: Sava Krstic (sava) (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo 5 - Author: walt sturgeon (Mycowalt) (CC BY-SA 3.0)