Coprinellus impatiens
Description
Coprinellus impatiens is a species of fungus in the family Psathyrellaceae. The fruit bodies have buff caps that are up to 4 cm (1.6 in) in diameter, held by slender whitish stems that can be up to 10 cm (3.9 in) tall.
It is found in North America and Europe (including Germany, Poland, and Ukraine) including northern Turkey. In the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, it is found in Oregon and Idaho. Fruit bodies grow solitarily, or rarely in small bundles, on forest litter in deciduous forests, especially ones dominated by beech.
Common names: Trooping Inkcap.
Mushroom Identification
Cap
2 to 4 cm across, initially oval becoming convex and finally bell-shaped; deeply furrowed; light ochre with a light orange central ’eye’; turning grey and eventually black but not deliquescing.
Gills
Adnexed or free; creamy-beige, turning grey.
Stem
4 to 9cm long and 0.2 to 0.4cm dia.; white; silky smooth; no ring.
Spores
Ellipsoidal, smooth, 9-12 x 5-6µm; with a central germ pore. The spores are noticeably larger than those of Coprinellus micaceus (7-10 x 4.5-6µm) with which Coprinellus impatiens is sometimes confused.
Spore Print
Very dark brown, almost black.
Odor and Taste
Not distinctive.
Habitat & Ecological Role
Saprobic, appearing singly or more often in small groups among leaf litter beneath deciduous broadleaf trees, notably Beeches, and nearly always on lime-rich soil.
Coprinellus impatiens Look-Alikes
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Similar size and coloring but when young the caps are covered in mica-like scales; its spores are significantly smaller than those of Coprinellus impatiens.
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Resembles C. impatiens, but may be distinguished by its slightly larger fruit body, somewhat deliquescent gills, and tendency to fruit in smaller groups on the ground, rather than on or around rotting wood. Also, C. disseminatus has smaller spores than C. impatiens, typically 6.6–9.7 by 4.1–5.8 μm.
Coprinellus eurysporus
Similar to C. disseminatus but usually grows in groups on fallen branches, and has broader spores that measure 8.3–10.3 by 6.7–8.4 µm.
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Usually grows in small dense clumps, has narrower spores (typically 9–11 by 4.5–5.5 μm, and produces smaller fruit bodies.
History
The species was first described in 1821 as Agaricus impatiens by Swedish mycologist Elias Magnus Fries in his Systema Mycologicum. In 1886, Lucien Quélet transferred the species to Coprinarius (a defunct genus now synonymous with Panaeolus) and then to Coprinus a couple of years later in his Flore Mycologique de la France.
In 1936, Robert Kühner segregated the genus Pseudocoprinus from Coprinus, including species that did not have deliquescent gills (that is, gills that "melt" into liquid), and he included Coprinus impatiens in this generic transfer. He later changed his mind about the taxonomic separation of Coprinus and Pseudocoprinus. Gillet transferred the species to Psathyrella in 1936. In 1938 Jakob Emanuel Lange published the new combination Coprinellus impatiens. Despite the taxonomic shuffling, the species was popularly known as Coprinus impatiens until 2001, when a large-scale phylogenetic analysis resulted in the splitting of the genus Coprinus into several smaller genera, and the authors confirmed the validity of the generic placement in Coprinellus. The specific epithet impatiens is derived from the Latin word for "impatient".
A 2005 phylogenetics study proposed that C. impatiens was sister (closely related on the phylogenetic tree) to a large Psathyrella clade, and that consequently, the genus Coprinellus was polyphyletic. A later (2008) study suggested, however, that these results were due to an artifact of taxon sampling—not enough species were analyzed to adequately represent the genetic variation in the genera. The 2008 study demonstrated that Coprinellus, including C. impatiens, was monophyletic, descended from a common ancestor. In their analysis, C. impatiens was most closely related to C. congregatus, C. bisporus, C. callinus, and C. heterosetulosus.
Photo sources:
Photo 1 - Author: Ben Anderson (btanderson) (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo 2 - Author: Ben Anderson (btanderson) (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo 3 - Author: Ben Anderson (btanderson) (CC BY-SA 3.0)