Lepista personata

What You Should Know

Lepista personata is a species of edible fungus commonly found growing in grassy areas across Europe and is morphologically related to the wood blewit (Clitocybe nuda). The cap is grayish brown to beige and very smooth. Starting convex becoming flattened or even depressed with an inrolled margin in younger specimens.

This mushroom rarely fruits alone, and it is not unusual to find them in fairy rings or in groups huddled together so that their caps are touching.

This mushroom keeps growing into winter and only a harsh frost will finish them off.

Other names: Field Blewit, Blue-leg.

Lepista personata Mushroom Identification

1. Cap

   The smooth cream to buff or light brown cap, up to 15 cm in diameter, is initially domed and has an incurved margin, but older specimens may become slightly concave and sometimes develop wavy cap margins.

2. Gills

   Sinuate to free and crowded, the gills are almost white when young, turning pinkish buff as the fruitbody matures.

3. Stem

   15 to 25 mm in diameter and 4 to 6 cm tall, the purple-flushed fibrous stem is solid and sometimes slightly bulbous at the base.

4. Spores

   Ellipsoidal, 6-8 by 4-5µm; ornamented with tiny spines.

5. Spore Print

   Off white to Pale pink. Ellipsoid with small spines. You should scrape your spores into a small pile to get an accurate spore color.

6. Odor and Taste

   Strongly perfumed and with a pleasant taste.

7. Habitat & Ecological Role

   Saprobic, growing most often in chalk or limestone grassland; occasionally in woods on calcareous soil; often producing fairy rings.

8. Season

   Most plentiful from September to November but sometimes seen through to January.

9. Similar Species

   Clitocybe nuda, the Wood Blewit, is an even more common species; it is very similar but has a violet tinge to the cap and gills.

   Some Cortinarius mushrooms have blue stems and brownish caps; they grow in woodlands rather than in open fields, however.

Lepista personata Taxonomy and Etymology

This mushroom was initially described as named Agaricus personatus by the great Swedish mycologist Elias Magnus Fries in 1818, at which time most gilled mushrooms were lumped together in the general-purpose Agaricus genus most of whose contents has since been distributed across many new genera. Mordecai Cubitt Cooke renamed this mushroom Lepista personata in 1871, and almost a century later, in 1960, English mycologist Peter Darbishire Orton gave it the name Lepista saeva.

Lepista personata Synonyms

1. Lepista saeva

2. Agaricus anserinus Fr.

3. Agaricus personatus ß saevus Fr.

4. Tricholoma personatum var. anserina (Fr.) Sacc.

5. Tricholoma personatum var. saevum (Fr.) Dumée

6. Rhodopaxillus saevus (Fr.) Maire

7. Tricholoma saevum (Fr.) Gillet.

8. Clitocybe saeva (proposed by Howard E. Bigelow & Alexander H. Smith in 1969, is preferred by some authorities and particularly in the USA).

Sources:

Photo 1 - Author: 2009-04-22_Lepista_saeva_(Fr.)_P.D._Orton_41666.jpg: (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported)

Photo 2 - Author: Strobilomyces (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported)

Photo 3 - Author: Lukas from London, England (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic)

Photo 4 - Author: Lukas from London, England (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic)

Photo 5 - Author: Lukas from London, England (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic)