Pholiotina rugosa
Description
Pholiotina rugosa is a small brown mushroom growing in a plant pot. Greasy brown cap 25 mm across with dark large central umbo and lighter orange-brown striate margin. Flexible dark grey stem 3 cm long, 2 mm diameter, lighter and powdery at the top with a broken ring that was brown on top and white beneath. Light brown free/adnexed gills with fine serrations along edges and maybe remains of cortina on them although it may have been spider web or slug slime! Spore print rusty-tawny. It is a common lawn mushroom that is widely distributed and especially common in the Pacific Northwest
This species is deadly poisonous. They have been shown to contain amatoxins, which are highly toxic to the liver and are responsible for many deaths by poisoning from mushrooms in the genera Amanita and Lepiota. They are sometimes mistaken for Psilocybe due to their similar-looking cap.
Common names: Common Conecap Mushroom.
Mushroom Identification
Ecology
Saprobic; growing alone or gregariously on the ground in woods or urban locations, often in landscaping areas near woody debris; spring and summer in north-temperate climates, or overwinter in Mediterranean climates; in North America distributed primarily in a zone from upstate New York to Michigan — and, especially, from northern California to Alaska; also reported from Europe and Oceania.
Cap
1–2 cm; broadly conic to broadly bell-shaped at first, becoming broadly convex to planoconvex, sometimes with a central bump; thin; lubricous; bald; smooth, or finely wrinkled over the center; dark orangish-brown centrally and yellowish-brown toward the edge; margin finely lined, about halfway to the center.
Gills
Narrowly attached to the stem; close; short-gills frequent; whitish becoming brownish; at first covered by a whitish partial veil.
Stem
20–35 mm long; 2–3 mm thick; fragile; equal above a slightly swollen base; brownish to brown below and whitish above; pruinose to fibrillose; with a fairly persistent, whitish to brownish, upward-flared ring that sometimes features a grooved upper edge.
Flesh
Insubstantial; watery brownish; unchanging.
Odor
Not distinctive.
Spore Print
Yellow-brown.
Microscopic Features
Spores 8–9 x 5–6 µm; ellipsoid; with a 1–1.5 µm pore; smooth; walls about 0.5 µm thick; bright orange-brown in KOH. Basidia 4-sterigmate; 20–25 x 6–8 µm; clavate. Pleurocystidia not found. Cheilocystidia 30–35 x 6–8 µm; lageniform, most with a fairly long neck; thin-walled; smooth; hyaline in KOH. Pileipellis hymeniform; terminal cells obpyriform; up to 25 µm across; smooth; hyaline in KOH.
Look-Alikes
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Similar in appearance, but is generally larger—and it grows on fallen logs, rather than on the ground.
Pholiotina rugosa
Look-alikes abound, depending on what you want to call "looking alike"; it's a little brown mushroom, after all.
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Is a more sharply conical mushroom that appears briefly on lawns other grassy areas; it does not have a stem ring.
History
This mushroom was first described scientifically in 1898 by American mycologist Charles Horton Peck (1833 - 1917), who named it Pholiota rugosa. This species was transferred to its present genus in 1981 by the British mycologist Roy Watling (b. 1938), at which point its binomial name became Conocybe rugosa.
The generic name Conocybe comes from the Latin Conus meaning a cone, and cybe meaning ahead - hence 'with a conical head', or in other words cone cap. Less obviously, the specific epithet rugosa means wrinkled - a reference to the texture of the cap surface.
Synonyms
Pholiota rugosa Peck (1898)
Pholiotina filaris var. rugosa (Peck) Singer (1950)
Conocybe rugosa (Peck) Watling (1981)
Agaricus togularius var. filarisFr. (1884)
Agaricus togularis var. filaris Fr. (1884)
Pholiotina filaris (Fr.) Peck (1908)
Pholiota togularis var. filaris (Fr.) J.E.Lange (1921)
Pholiota filaris (Fr.) Singer (1936)
Conocybe filaris (Fr.) Kühner (1935)
Galera vestita var. pusilla Quél. (1886)
Conocybe pusilla (Quél.) Romagn. (1937)
Photo sources:
Photo 1 - Author: Lord Mayonnaise (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo 2 - Author: Lord Mayonnaise (CC BY-SA 3.0)