Macrolepiota mastoidea

Description

Macrolepiota mastoidea is a large mushroom with a pale brown and a darker brown area near the crown. The cap presents a very pronounced umbo and small scales which leave the edge uncovered; the stipe is finely ornamented by pale ochreous woolly tufts or scales on a whitish or pale cream background. It occurs in coastal dunes in what would otherwise be acidic areas were it not for the presence of broken seashells that raise the alkalinity of the thin soil.

Common names: Slender Parasol.

Mushroom Identification

1. Cap

   7-12 (14) cm, initially conical-campanulate, then campanulate and finally flat, with pronounced umbo, breast-shaped; margin initially inrolled, then stretched, protruding on the gills; the cuticle, of ocherous, cream-ochre, light brown color, cracks in small scales, initially adpressed then increasingly rare, especially at the margin, where they allow to see the white-cream color of the background, the center is of a more or less dark brown color.

2. Gills

   Thick gills, intercalated by several lamellulas, spaced, with collar, initially white than cream, the thread, of the same color, is entire.

3. Stipe

   8-15 x 1-1,5 cm, slender, cylindrical, attenuated on top, wide at the base which ends in a bulb, fistulose, fibrillose; surface finely decorated by pale ochre mottles, almost of the same color as the cap on a whitish background. Membranous ring, simple, the upper face is initially white then brownish, the lower one is whitish.

4. Flesh

   Thick in the center and thin in the margin, soft, fibrous in the stipe, almost no odor, mild taste.

5. Habitat

   Grows in summer and in autumn, in the glades of the broad-leaved trees woods.

Look-Alikes

1. Macrolepiota procera

   Larger and has a snakeskin-like pattern on its stem.

2. Chlorophyllum rhacodes

   Has reflexed scales and a smooth stipe; its flesh reddens when cut or bruised.

3. Macrolepiota affinis

   Has a fine decoration on the cap as well as on the stipe formed by small scales of the same color, in the hyphae of the pileipellis does have a vacuolar pigment associated with a membranary one.

History

The basionym of this mushroom dates from 1821, when Elias Magnus Fries included it in his Systema Mycologia, calling it Agaricus mastoideus.

Earlier, in 1801, Danish botanist Heinrich Christian Friedrich Schumacher (1757 - 1830) had illustrated this mushroom, calling it Agaricus umbonatus.

The specific epithet mastoidea is probably not a reference not to the bony prominence (mastoid) located behind the human ear but rather based on the prefix masto- meaning something to do with a woman's breasts and their nipples.

Synonyms

1. Agaricus mastoideus Fr. (1821)

2. Agaricus umbonatus Schumach. (1803)

3. Lepiota excoriata subsp. mastoidea (Fr.) Quél. (1888)

4. Lepiota mastoidea (Fr.) P. Kumm. (1871)

5. Lepiota mastoidea (Fr.) P. Kumm. (1871) var. mastoidea

6. Lepiota pitereka Grgur. (1997)

7. Lepiota rickenii Velen. (1939)

8. Lepiota umbonata Cleland (1931)

9. Lepiota umbonata J. Schröt. (1889)

10. Lepiotophyllum mastoideum (Fr.) Locq. (1942)

11. Leucocoprinus mastoideus (Fr.) Singer (1939)

12. Macrolepiota mastoidea var. rickenii (Velen.) Gminder (2003)

13. Macrolepiota rickenii

Photo sources:

Photo 1 - Author: Jerzy Opioła (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Photo 2 - Author: Lucille Schmitz (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Photo 3 - Author: agujaceratops (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Photo 4 - Author: Michel Langeveld (CC BY-SA 4.0)