Mycena adonis

Description
Mushroom Identification
Look-Alikes
History
Synonyms

Description

Mycena adonis is an inedible species of fungus in the family Mycenaceae. It produces conic to bell-shaped small orangish to reddish mushrooms. Grows in conifer woods and peat bogs, prefer acidic environments. The cap margin, which is initially pressed against the stem, is opaque or nearly so at first. It is scarlet red when fresh and moist, becoming orange or yellowish orange before losing moisture. The flesh is thin, the same color as the cap, fragile, and without any distinctive taste or odor. The gills are ascending-adnate or attached by a tooth. Additionally, there are two or three tiers of lamellulae – short gills that do not extend fully from the cap edge to the stem. It is found in western North America, China, Europe, and the Canary Islands.

Common names: Scarlet Bonnet, Helmovka Jitřenková (Czech Republic), Korallenroter Helmling (German), Adonismycena (Netherlands).

Mushroom Identification

Cap

The cap is 1-2 cm in diameter, initially bell-shaped or cone-shaped, and later spread out. The surface of the cap is slightly scarred and sticky in wet weather, red-pink, orange-pink, orange-red, bright pink, yellowish-pink, lighter near the edges, pale, yellowish with age.
Gills

The hymenophore is lamellar. The gills are thin, narrow, toothed, at first white, later cream or pinkish, lighter near the edges.
Stem

2-4 cm high, 0.1-0.2 cm in diameter, cylindrical, brittle, hollow, translucent, floury, whitish, pinkish-yellowish, lighter at the base.
Flesh

The flesh is thin, brittle, whitish, or pinkish, without a pronounced smell.
Spores

10-12 * 3.5-5.5 μm, elliptical in shape, with a smooth surface.
Spore Print

White.
Habitat

It grows in coniferous and mixed forests, on fallen branches, on fallen trunks, on wood submerged in the soil, on fallen needles and fallen leaves, among moss, in the grass, on wetlands, singly and in groups, rarely.
Season

June to October.

Look-Alikes

Mycena acicula

Typically is a smaller mushroom with a deep orange-red cap rather than the typical bright salmon pink of M. adonis. Since the colors and sizes of M. acicula and M. adonis are close, the microscope is the best way to distinguish them, with spore size and shape being different.
Mycena aurantiidisca

Can be distinguished from M. adonis by its lack of scarlet to pinkish tones in the cap and lack of gelatinized cortical hyphae.
Mycena oregonensis

Distinguished from M. adonis by its orange to yellow cap and lack of scarlet to pinkish tones.
Mycena strobilinoides

Can be distinguished by its orange cap and amyloid spores.
Mycena oregonensis

Is differentiated from M. adonis by its orange to yellow cap and lack of scarlet to pinkish tones.
Mycena roseipallens

Has a smaller fruit body, wider spores, a less intensely colored and less conical cap, and grows on the decaying wood of elm, ash, and alder.
Mycena floridula

Has lighter petals, lighter shades on the cap, and smaller spores.

History

The species was first named Agaricus adonis in 1792 by Jean Baptiste François Pierre Bulliard, and placed in Mycena by Samuel Frederick Gray in 1821. Rolf Singer successively moved it to Hemimycena (1943), then Marasmiellus (1951). Singer later changed his mind about these placements, and his 1986 Agaricales in Modern Taxonomy, he considered the species a Mycena; the binomials resulting from the prior generic transfers are synonyms.

The species name Adonis refers to the beauty of this mushroom, named after the (male) Greek god of beauty. Adonis is also associated with the rebirth of flowers, which appear fresh and young every year.