Agrocybe pediades

Description

Agrocybe pediades is a typical lawn and other types of grassland mushroom, but can also grow on mulch containing horse manure. This common inhabitant of grassy areas is characterized by a smooth (sticky when moist), buff-brown cap, brown spores, slender stipe, and a soon disappearing fibrillose veil.

Agrocybe pediades is easily confused with some highly poisonous brown mushrooms and should be avoided when collecting for consumption.

Common names: Common Fieldcap Mushroom.

Mushroom Identification

1. Ecology

   Saprobic; growing alone or gregariously in lawns, meadows, and other grassy areas (also sometimes on woodchips, manure, or compost); summer, or nearly year-round in warm climates; originally described from Europe; common and widely distributed in North America; also found in the Caribbean, South America, Asia, and Oceania.

2. Cap

   1–3 cm across; convex, becoming broadly convex or nearly flat; bald; sometimes sticky when fresh; dark honey yellow, fading to pale brownish yellow; often with a thin strip of white partial veil remnants on the margin when very young.

3. Gills

   Narrowly attached to the stem; close or nearly distant; short-gills frequent; pale yellow-brown becoming darker brown; when young covered by an ephemeral white partial veil.

4. Stem

   2–8 cm long; 2–4 mm thick; more or less equal; bald or finely fibrillose; colored like the cap; sometimes twisted; basal mycelium white.

5. Flesh

   Whitish; not changing when sliced; thin.

6. Spore Print

   Dull brown with a hint of cinnamon.

Look-Alikes

1. Marasmius oreades

   Has slightly distant, cream-colored gills and white spores.

2. Stropharia coronilla

   Has a purplish gills, purple-brown spores and a striate-edged annulus.

3. Panaeolina foenisecii

   Has a darker-brown cap, mottled dark gills and dark-brown spores. To confirm an identification, a microscope is needed to check the cuticle which is cellular and the spores which have an apical pore.

4. Agrocybe praecox

   Grows in spring, summer, and early summer on grasses, forest margins, and sawdust mulch; it usually has a pale yellow cap that fades more with age, and almost always has a stem ring.

History

In 1821 Elias Magnus Fries described this species and gave it the scientific name Agaricus pediades.

In 1889 Swiss mycologist Victor Fayod (1960 - 1900) transferred this species to the genus Agrocybe establishing its currently accepted scientific name Agrocybe pediades.

The term "fieldcap" is derived from Agro-, of fields, and -cybe, head or cap, and its direct translation of the generic name Agrocybe. The specific epithet pediades means "of the plains", or "of the soil".

Synonyms

1. Naucoria pediades (Fr.) P. Kumm., 1871

2. Simocybe pediades (Fr.) P. Karst., 1879

3. Nolanea pediades (Fr.) Sacc., 1887

4. Naucoria pediades var. obscuripes Fayod, 1889

5. Naucoria arenaria Peck, 1912

6. Naucoria subpediades Murrill, 1942

7. Naucoria arenicola (Berk.) Sacc., 1887

8. Agrocybe arenicola (Berk.) Singer, 1936

9. Agrocybe pusilla (Schaeff.) Watling, 1981

10. Naucoria semiorbicularis (Bull.) Quél., 1872

11. Simocybe semiorbicularis (Bull.) P. Karst., 1879

12. Hylophila semiorbicularis (Bull.) Quél., 1886

13. Agrocybe semiorbicularis (Bull.) Fayod, 1889

14. Naucoria arenaria Peck, 1912

15. Agaricus pusillus Schaeff.

16. Agaricus semiorbicularis Bull.

17. Agaricus pediades Fr.

18. Agaricus arenicola Berk.

Photo sources:

Photo 1 - Author: Terri Clements/Donna Fulton (pinonbistro) (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Photo 2 - Author: Alan Rockefeller (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Photo 3 - Author: James K. Lindsey (CC BY-SA 2.5)

Photo 4 - Author: leschampignons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Photo 5 - Author: James K. Lindsey (CC BY-SA 2.5)