Lepiota brunneoincarnata: The Ultimate Mushroom Guide

About The Lepiota brunneoincarnata Mushroom

Highly toxic and widely distributed mushroom in Europe and temperate regions of Asia as far east as China. It grows in grassy areas such as fields, parks and gardens, and is often mistaken for edible mushrooms; the mushroom has a brown scaled cap up to 4 cm wide with a pinkish brown stem and white gills.

The genus Lepiota contains approximately 400 species of mushrooms distributed worldwide. It is well-known that several species have caused fatal poisonings after ingestion from Europe, America, and Asia, such as Lepiota brunneoincarnata , Lepiota helveola , and Lepiota subincarnata . These poisonous Lepiota species contain amatoxins, which are responsible for the hepatotoxicity by irreversibly binding to RNA polymerase II.

Lepiota brunneoincarnata, also known as the Deadly Dapperling.

Lepiota brunneoincarnata Identification

1. Cap

   Initially hemispherical, becoming broadly convex and sometimes almost flat with a slight umbo; pinkish-brown felty surface eventually breaks into fine woolly scales often forming irregularly concentric rings, paler and more widely spaced towards the margin; flesh white.

   Cap diameter at maturity ranges from 2.5 to 6cm.

2. Gills

   The free, crowded gills are creamy white, and the cheilocystidia (gill-edge cystidia) are cylindrical or narrowly clavate.

3. Stem

   Creamy white with a pink flush, 2.5 to 5cm long and 5 to 9mm diameter; flesh white. The upper half is smooth while the lower stem, below an indistinct woolly ring, is decorated with dark-brown fibrous scales.

4. Spores

   Ellipsoidal; smooth, 8.9-10.2 x 4.8-5.5Ојm; dextrinoid.

5. Spore print: White.

Lepiota brunneoincarnata Habitat & Ecological Role

Saprobic, usually in small groups in broadleaf and mixed woodlands; also occasionally in sand-dune grassland. This mushroom grow in warmer parts of Europe, generally the south, but has also been recorded from Britain and Germany. In Asia, it has been recorded from Turkey, Israel, Pakistan, Iran and eastern China; the fruit bodies come up in parks and gardens, on roadsides and hedges.

The season starts from July to November in Britain and Ireland.

Lepiota brunneoincarnata Taxonomy & Etymology

This mushroom was first described scientifically in 1889 by Swiss mycologists Robert Hippolyte Chodat (1865-1934) and Charles-Édouard Martin (1847-1937), who named it Lepiota brunneoincarnata; this remains its generally-accepted scientific name.

The genus name, comes from Greek words Lepis-, meaning scale, and -ot, meaning ear. Scaly ear fungus is an interpretation, therefore. Scales on a convex (vaguely ear-shaped, perhaps) cap are characteristic of fungi in this genus, as also are free gills and a stem ring.

The specific epithet brunneoincarnata is a reference to brownish-pink (literally 'flesh coloured but with a brown tinge') cap colouring.