Mycena tintinnabulum

Description
Mushroom Identification
Synonyms

Description

Mycena tintinnabulum is a European species of agaric fungus in the family Mycenaceae. The mycelium, but not the fruit body, are bioluminescent.

First described by August Johann Georg Karl Batsch, and given the simplified Asian name by Lucien Quélet in 1872.

It can be identified by the more or less fasciculate growth, generally on Fagus stumps, and often in great numbers, late in the autumn and also during mild winters. The thick gelatinous pellicle, which gives it a viscid, lubricous, or shiny appearance is a typical feature. Microscopically it is first of all characterized by the very small spores, that separates it from all the other species in the section.

Mushroom Identification

Cap
5-26 mm across, at first hemispherical, then conical, parabolical, convex to almost plane, sometimes with recurved margin, often with a small umbo but also at times slightly depressed at the center, pruinose, glabrescent, not or very shallowly sulcate, not striate or only striate at the margin, lubricous to somewhat viscid, hygrophanous, dark brown with a black-brown center to pale brown, darker at the center and paler at the margin, which often is whitish, or beige-brown to grayish beige with whitish margin.
Gills
23-28 reaching the stipe, ascending-arcuate, broadly adnate, decurrent with a tooth, with age subhorizontal, elastic-tough, somewhat veined and forked with age, whitish, pale grey to pale brown, sometimes with brown spots, and in some collections with a pink flush.
Stem
15-45 x 1-3 mm, hollow in the upper part, terete, equal, straight, curved or somewhat flexuous, tenacious, pruinose at the apex, glabrous farther down, whitish to grayish when young, mostly with whitish apex and darker below, then becoming more yellow-brown, the base densely covered with whitish fibrils.
Flesh
Tenacious, grayish to whitish.
Odor
Indistinctive.
Spore Print
White.
Microscopic Features
Basidia 15-28 x 4.1-5, 4-spored, with sterigmata 2.5-4.5 µm long. Spores 4.5-6.5 x 2-3 µm, Q = 1.8-2.4, Qav = 2.2, narrowly pip-shaped, smooth, amyloid. Cheilocystidia 15-35 x 8-14, clavate to somewhat irregularly shaped, covered with fairly few, unevenly spaced, coarse, simple to branched, more or less curved excrescences 1.5-11 x 1-2 µm. Pleurocystidia absent. Hyphae of the pileipellis 1-3 µm wide, embedded in gelatinous matter, more or less smooth or with scattered excrescences, often undulate. Hyphae of the cortical layer of the stipe 1.5-4 µm wide, embedded in gelatinous matter, smooth to covered with excrescences 2-10 x 1-1.5 µm, terminal cells widened to 7 µm, variously shaped. Clamp connections are present in all tissues.