Lepiota magnispora

Description

Lepiota magnispora is a beautiful woodland species easily recognized by its coarsely scaled, yellowish-brown cap, appendiculate margin, shaggy stipe, free gills, and white spore print. Unlike many Lepiotas, the partial veil does not form a well-developed annulus.

Widespread mainly in broadleaf and mixed woodlands but just occasionally in conifer forests too, Lepiota magnispora occurs also in many parts of mainland Europe, from Iceland and northern Scandinavia right down to the Mediterranean region. The North American range of Lepiota magnispora is uncertain, due to confusion with Lepiota clypeolaria and with Lepiota species.

Common names: Yellowfoot Dapperling.

Mushroom Identification

1. Ecology

   Saprobic; growing scattered, gregariously, or in clusters in forest litter; found under hardwoods and conifers; summer and fall (overwinter in coastal California); North American distribution uncertain.

2. Cap

   4-7 cm; convex at first, becoming broadly convex to broadly bell-shaped or nearly flat in age; dry; finely fibrillose-scaly; yellow-brown to rusty brown, with a darker, contrasting center; the margin sometimes hung with a few wisps of veil remnants.

3. Gills

   Free from the stem; close; short-gills present; white, becoming slightly brownish with age; at first covered by a thin, white partial veil.

4. Stem

   4-9 cm long; 0.5-1.5 cm thick; more or less equal, with a slightly swollen base; bald near the apex; fibrillose to shaggy below; whitish to brownish; with a sheathing, white ring or ring zone that often disappears; basal mycelium white and copious.

5. Flesh

   White; not changing when sliced.

6. Odor and Taste

   Not distinctive.

7. Chemical Reactions

   KOH negative on cap surface.

8. Spore Print

   White.

9. Microscopic Features

   Spores 13-20 x 4-5 µ; fusiform, with a flattened abaxial side; smooth; hyaline in KOH; dextrinoid. Cheilocystidia inconspicuous and basidiole-like; clavate; to about 30 x 10. Pleurocystidia absent. Pileipellis is a tangle of cylindric elements giving rise to areas of trichoderm; reddish-brown in KOH; some elements clamped.

Look-Alikes

1. Lepiota magnispora

   Have a darker disk to the pileus. They have distinct microscopic features.

2. Lepiota ignivolvata

   Has a bright orange or red-brown ring low down on the stem.

3. Lepiota cristata

   Typically larger with paler scales and has an unpleasant odor.

History

This mushroom was described in 1912 by American mycologist William Alphonso Murrill (1869 - 1957), who gave it the binomial scientific name Lepiota magnispora.

Although more brightly colored and having larger fusoid spores (very reminiscent of bolete spores), the Yellowfoot Dapperling was nevertheless treated by Carlton Rea as synonymous with Lepiota clypeolaria and by Berkeley & Broome as Agaricus metulisporus (= Lepiota metulispora).

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

The specific epithet magnispora means large spores.

Synonyms

1. Lepiota ventriosospora D.A. Reid 1958

2. Lepiota ventriosospora var. fulva Bon.

3. Lepiota metulaespora

4. Lepiota metulispora

Photo sources:

Photo 1 - Author: Michael (inski) (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Photo 2 - Author: pinonbistro (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Photo 3 - Author: Thomas Laxton (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Photo 4 - Author: Strobilomyces (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Photo 5 - Author: Michael (inski) (CC BY-SA 3.0)