Entoloma sericellum
Description
Entoloma sericellum is a species of mushroom-forming fungus belonging to the family Entolomataceae. It appears in conifer and hardwood forests. The cap is dry, white, and covered by tiny fibrils. The gills are white and fragile. The stipe is thin, white, and sometimes translucent. The cap and stipe are yellow in age, while the gills turn pinkish from the spores as they mature.
Common names: Cream Pinkgill.
Mushroom Identification
Cap
1.0-4.5 cm in diameter, at first deeply convex, expanding to broadly convex, the disc depressed or raised; margin occasionally wavy, incurved when young, decurved to plane in age; surface appressed-fibrillose, sometimes appearing silky, white to cream-buff, sporadically bruising pale salmon to cream-yellow; context thin, 2-4 mm thick at the disc, white; odor mild; taste somewhat farinaceous.
Gills
Adnate, notched, to subdecurrent, close, thin, relatively narrow, up to 4 mm in width, white to cream in youth, tinged pinkish in age from maturing spores; lamellulae up to 3-seried.
Stipe
2.5-5.5 cm long, 4.0-8.0 mm thick, fragile, cartilaginous, more or less equal, stuffed to hollow at maturity, round to grooved longitudinally; surface of apex pruinose, elsewhere inconspicuously striate with scattered cottony scales, white tomentose at the base; partial veil absent.
Spores
9.0-11.5 x 7.0-8.5 µm, angular, hilar appendage conspicuous, with a central guttule; spore print pink.
Habitat
Solitary to scattered in open areas of mixed hardwood/conifer woods; fruiting from late fall to mid-winter; locally common.
Look-Alikes
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Larger and has decurrent gills and a grey cap; it smells mealy.
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Has brownish gills and provides a brown spore print, whereas Entoloma sericellum has pink spores.
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Can be distinguished by brownish gills, and a green corn odor, and some white species of Hygrophorus. These, however, typically have thick, waxy gills, and white spores.
History
When in 1818 the Swedish mycological pioneer Elias Magnus Fries described this pinkgill mushroom he gave it the name Agaricus sericeus ß sericellus. It was the German mycologist Paul Kummer who in 1871 transferred this species to the genus Entoloma, thereby establishing its currently-accepted binomial name as Entoloma sericellum.
Entoloma sericellum has attracted a vast array of synonyms including Agaricus sericeus ß sericellus Fr., Leptonia sericella var. sublutescens Henn., Rhodophyllus carneoalbus (With.) Quél., Clitopilus carneoalbus (With.) Sacc., and Alboleptonia sericella (Fr.) Largent & R.G. Benedict.
The generic name Entoloma comes from ancient Greek words entos, meaning inner, and lóma, meaning a fringe or a hem. It is a reference to the inrolled margins of many of the mushrooms in this genus.
The specific epithet sericellum refers to the silkiness of the cap surface, although this feature is unreliable as some specimens have very smooth caps.
Photo sources:
Photo 1 - Author: Richard Kneal (bloodworm) (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo 2 - Author: 2009-11-23_Entoloma_sericellum_28643.jpg: (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo 3 - Author: Richard Sullivan (enchplant) (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo 4 - Author: Richard Kneal (bloodworm) (CC BY-SA 3.0)