Unknown fungi
 

Can anyone ID this for me, I'm useless at fungi.
Growing in our south facing front garden in grass, there are a number of
them coming up and this is the oldest. A large Robinia pseudoacacia tortuosa
was cut down nearby about a month ago.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobhobd...7628125425937/


-- Regards
Bob Hobden
Posting to this Newsgroup
from the W.of London. UK

It is so much easier in the flesh when you can get a much better idea of the texture of the thing, how slimy, how fragile, etc, you get used to the jizz of certain things. Now this ought to be fairly easy, is my initial thought, because there aren't many with such prominent rings on the stem. But I'm struggling.

My instinct is that it is a Lepiota of some kind. But my doubt comes from the fact that they usually have quite white gills, sometimes a little bit off-white. I can't quite tell from your photos if yours has gills that are too off-white to be consistent with that: certainly you'd expect the young ones to have white gills. There are about 60 species of Lepiota in Britain, and Phillips only gives about a third of them...

Now the most common species with off-white gills and a ring like that is Honey Fungus, Armillaria spp, which is very variable in form, but they come in great clusters together, not individually like the ones in your photos, and are rarely as squat as yours, so I don't think it is that, you will be pleased to hear.

A couple of other ringed genuses - Hygrophorus has slimy tops and waxy gills, so not very plausible; Hebeloma tends to remain convex capped and not with the scales like yours, and rarely so persistently ringed. A continental book I have mentions a genus called Limacella, which has white gills that can mature off-white, but Phillips doesn't have it, so it may not even be present here; or he may have included it in Lepiota, which it is very close to. It clearly isn't an Amanita, Agaricus or Coprinus, or near approximation to any of those.

Finally there is that great dumping ground, Cortinarius, with very variable form and colouration, many have veils, a few have rings. There are about 230 species in Britain: they are nearly all uncommon, but there are so many species that together they are fairly frequent. Identifying Cortinarius is an expert job, and not many of those can be bothered. That Horse Whisperer bloke did himself a lot of damage eating a Cortinarius he thought, quite bizarrely, was a Chanterelle - the one he found was orange but that was about as far as the resemblance went.

Some ideas for you to chew over, anyway.

My first thought was the False Chanterelle, Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca. although it's stretching it's habitat of coniferous woods or on acid heathland a bit

picture he Rogers Mushrooms - Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca Mushroom

As far as I can see, OP's one isn't yellow/orange, doesn't have strongly decurrent gills (though we can't clearly see whether the gills are free, attached or decurrent from the photos), has scales on the cap and has a ring on the stem. Which, if I have interpreted the photos correctly, would be 4 wrong factors for that id. And wrong habitat too, as you say.

Unknown fungi
 

"Bob Hobden" wrote

Can anyone ID this for me, I'm useless at fungi.
Growing in our south facing front garden in grass, there are a number of
them coming up and this is the oldest. A large Robinia pseudoacacia
tortuosa was cut down nearby about a month ago.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobhobd...7628125425937/


I've added some more photos, just taken, to the set...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobhobd...7628125414607/

The cap and stem feel like a normal edible mushroom and the smell of the
broken one is a nice mushroomy smell, quite pleasant.

--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

My comment about 'first thought' was meant to imply uncertainty.

Interesting as the picture I'm looking at is dark orangey/brown on top and yellow gills and stem,now I've found out to enlarge the pictures the one on the right appears to have white gills so it may be the sun shining through the cap causing the yellow gills on the left one.

As well as a ring it appears that the stem has a bulb at the base although witout pulling it up it's difficult to be certain.

I've followed through the keys in both Roger Phillips book as well as Marcel Bon's Mushrooms and toadstools and cant find anything that fits the bill.

I thing to move forward we need a spore print taken to determine the spore colour. Also a description of it's colouring, and texture would be useful as it looks waxy to me
How to do a spore print: Making Spore Prints (MushroomExpert.Com)

Those extra pictures weren't showing when I originally open the thread and hit the reply button ( I got called away to help the one who must be obeyed for about a hour :-( ) looking at the new ones the colour is completely different, much more like a grey/light brown one. Still doesn't help much though.

Unknown fungi
 

"Bob Hobden" wrote in message
...
"Bob Hobden" wrote

Can anyone ID this for me, I'm useless at fungi.
Growing in our south facing front garden in grass, there
are a number of them coming up and this is the oldest. A
large Robinia pseudoacacia tortuosa was cut down nearby
about a month ago.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobhobd...7628125425937/


I've added some more photos, just taken, to the set...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobhobd...7628125414607/

The cap and stem feel like a normal edible mushroom and
the smell of the broken one is a nice mushroomy smell,
quite pleasant.

--

Rozites caperatus? aka Pholiota caperata, aka Cortinarius
caperatus. It seems to have a veil, and looks like the one
in Roger Phillips' book.

someone

Having seen the further photos, I would agree with you that it is probably a Cortinarius spp, but I doubt it is Rozites. R is mostly confined to Scotland in GB, is rather uncommon even there, and doesn't have scales on the cap.

From the further photos, it does now look as if it has a sticky veil when expanding, and a bulb, and it is much clearer that it has a scaly cap. The scaly cap rules out most of the options mentioned so far except Lepiota, Armillaria and Cortinarius. It has become clear it isn't Armillaria from the stipe shape including bulb. The gills look too far off-white for Lepiota, and it doesn't have a sticky veil.

So, as Sherlock says, when you have excluded everything else... Sticky veil, non-white gills, bulb, all of these are consistent with a Cortinarius of some kind. But, as I said before, there are 200+ species growing here, nearly all are uncommon and not in the consumer books, so once you are dealing with a Cortinarius it is an expert job to get a positive id to species level, unless it is one of a few more frequent ones.

Cortinarisu have a light or greyish brown spore print I think.

On which point, don't eat it. Rozites is edible, but Cortinarius includes some highly poisonous ones, and very few are known to be edible. Smell and taste are not an indication of edibility - the morituri (and a few lucky survivors) report that death caps are very tasty.

As I said we need a spore print to move forward as the spore colour will help identify the family group

Unknown fungi
 

"Granity" wrote


echinosum; Wrote:
On which point, don't eat it. Rozites is edible, but Cortinarius
includes some highly poisonous ones, and very few are known to be
edible. Smell and taste are not an indication of edibility - the
morituri (and a few lucky survivors) report that death caps are very
tasty.

As I said we need a spore print to move forward as the spore colour will
help identify the family group


I have the cap of one of the smaller ones on a white piece of paper in my
garage covered with a large flowerpot. So we will so IDC.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

Unknown fungi
 

"Bob Hobden" wrote

"Granity" wrote


echinosum; Wrote:
On which point, don't eat it. Rozites is edible, but Cortinarius
includes some highly poisonous ones, and very few are known to be
edible. Smell and taste are not an indication of edibility - the
morituri (and a few lucky survivors) report that death caps are very
tasty.

As I said we need a spore print to move forward as the spore colour will
help identify the family group


I have the cap of one of the smaller ones on a white piece of paper in my
garage covered with a large flowerpot. So we will so IDC.

Just looked, the spore print is white with radial lines.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

In that case it limits it to the Lepiota family unfortunately the only ones that look like yours in my books grow in woods, the grassland ones bear no resemblance, however if you go through the family in Rogers Mushrooms | Mushroom Pictures & Mushroom Reference you may recognize it having seen it in the flesh so to speak

Unknown fungi
 

"Granity" wrote ...


Bob Hobden Wrote:
"Bob Hobden" wrote -

"Granity" wrote-


echinosum; Wrote:-
On which point, don't eat it. Rozites is edible, but Cortinarius
includes some highly poisonous ones, and very few are known to be
edible. Smell and taste are not an indication of edibility - the
morituri (and a few lucky survivors) report that death caps are very
tasty.-

As I said we need a spore print to move forward as the spore colour
will
help identify the family group

-
I have the cap of one of the smaller ones on a white piece of paper in
my
garage covered with a large flowerpot. So we will so IDC.-

Just looked, the spore print is white with radial lines.

In that case it limits it to the Lepiota family unfortunately the only
ones that look like yours in my books grow in woods, the grassland ones
bear no resemblance, however if you go through the family in 'Rogers
Mushrooms | Mushroom Pictures & Mushroom Reference'
(http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/) you may recognize it having seen it in
the flesh so to speak




Had a look at Lepiota on that site and any that I think may be it say it's
got an un-mushroomy smell. This has a very pleasant mushroomy smell. the cap
was smooth, like leather not scaly and the gills were a light yellow.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK