Mycena pelianthina
Description
Mycena pelianthina is a rare mushroom with purplish or violaceous tints and the raphanoid odor.
Growing solitary or in small groups among vegetable debris under various deciduous trees but also on fallen needles in Picea woods on calcareous soil. In Europe, it grows typically under Fagus but in Norway, it had mainly been found under Alnus until it was collected under Fagus in Vestfold 2000.
Listed as vulnerable in The Red List Of Threatened Fungi In Norway. Autumn.
This mushroom is a close relative of Mycena pura, with which it could easily be confused unless the gill edges are inspected closely.
Common names: Blackedge Bonnet
Mushroom Identification
Cap
15-50 mm across, hemispherical to campanulate, becoming plano-convex, shallowly sulcate, translucent-striate, hygrophanous, glabrous, slightly lubricous when moist, date brown to pale dingy purplish brown or pale liliaceous brown, drying pale ochraceous or beige, with or without a pinkish shade.
Gills
29-50 mm reaching the stem, adnexed or emarginateto adnate, decurrent with a short tooth, dorsally intervenose, pale liliaceous gray-brown, pale purplish-brown, densely punctate by minute, dark purplish-brown dots (pleurocystidia), the edge dark purplish-brown.
Stem
25-70 x 2-8 mm, fragile to firm, equal or somewhat broadened downwards, cylindrical or laterally compressed, coarsely fibrillose or even floccose, whitish with slight yellowish, brownish, or liliaceous tint, lengthwise striate by dark purplish-brown fibrils, the base densely white-villose.
Odor and Taste
Raphanoid.
Basidia
20-24 x 4.5-5.5 µm, slenderly clavate, 4-spored. Spores 6-7.5(-8) x 3.1-4.1(-4.5) µm, Q = 1.7-2.1, Qav ˜ 1.9-2, pip-shaped, amyloid.
Cheilocystidia
40-70 x 6-14 µm, mostly occuring mixed with the basidia, but often very much protruding, and then locally forming a sterile band, fusiform, smooth, with purplish-brown contents. Pleurocystidia numerous, similar, with purplish-brown contents. Hyphae of the pileipellis 1.5-4.5 µm wide, smooth. Hyphae of the cortical layer of the stem 2.5-3.5 µm wide, smooth, the terminal cells 2-8 µm wide, cylindrical, simple or apically somewhat branched. Clamps are present in all tissues.
Spores
Ellipsoidal to subcylindrical, smooth, 6.5-8.5 x 3.5-4.5μm; amyloid.
Spore Print
White.
History
The basionym of this species was established when, in 1788 Elias Magnus Fries described this species scientifically, calling it Agaricus pelianthinus. The currently accepted scientific name Mycena pelianthina dates from a 1872 publication by French mycologist Lucien Quelet.
Synonyms of Mycena pelianthina include Agaricus denticulatus Bolton, Agaricus pelianthinus Fr., Prunulus denticulatus (Bolton) Gray, Prunulus pelianthinus (Fr.) Jacq. Johnson, Vilgalys & Redhead.
The specific epithet pelianthina comes from Latin and means 'of a livid blue color'.
Photo sources:
Photo 1 - Author: Arne Aronsen, Naturhistorisk museum, Universitetet i Oslo (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo 2 - Author: James Baker (cepecity) (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo 3 - Author: James Baker (cepecity) (CC BY-SA 3.0)
