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Two requests for help. Although not particularly blue, and with no flakes at the margin, is this Blue Roundhead (Stropharia caerulea)? And, is an excreting cheilocystidium typical?
Description
Habitat: In moss/soil near pile of rotting logs and deciduous trees (ash, willow and birch).
Cap: 5cm, umbonate, slimy (really gloopy) yellowish-green, with extensive blue patch on top and bluish perimeter.
Gills: Close, adnate and free, and pinkish grey.
Stem: 8.5cm, 5mm at apex, widening to 1cm and club base, with long white hairs. Greenish at apex, ring of red-tinged fibres, then bluish-green. Surfaced white at base. Stem cleanly snaps – cartilaginous?
Spore print: reddish-brown.
Spores: Smooth, ellipsoid, 6.5-8.0 x 3.5-4.5µm (Mountant – Meltzer’s reagent)
Cheilocystidia: Widely fusoid, thin-walled, 34-39 x 11-13µm. (Mountant – KOH 3%, with Phloxine B stain)
Michael Kuo describes the chryso-cheilocystidia as having “yellowish-refractive inclusions” and this seems to be the case.
There’s discussion of the function of cheilocystidia at
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_function_of_cheilocystidia_in_higher_fungi Images A and C appear to show cheilocystidia excreting spores. Is this what’s happening?
Many thanks for any help you can give… Nick
Of the three blue Stropharia, this would seem the most likely based on your data. It has slightly smaller spores than the others which fit your measuremnets better. Not sure what you mean by ‘excreting cheilocystidium’ ? This group have cheilochysocystidia with apical projections (mucronate), and yours look typical.
Regards, Chris
Edit: Didn’t read the last bit about excreting spores. These are just adhering to the cystidia giving the impression of excreting.
Chris Johnson wrote:
Of the three blueStropharia, this would seem the most likely based on your data. It has slightly smaller spores than the others which fit your measuremnets better. Not sure what you mean by ‘excreting cheilocystidium’ ? This group have cheilochysocystidia with apical projections (mucronate), and yours look typical.
Regards, Chris
Edit: Didn’t read the last bit about excreting spores. These are just adhering to the cystidia giving the impression of excreting.
Many thanks, Chris, for the quick response and tentative confirmation of S. caerulea.
The images I attached of cheilocystidia are EDF composites, built from between four and eight layers. I’m attaching four in the sequence for image C. Maybe I’m mistaken but the spore looks as if it is actually in the cystidia. Similarly for image A – the object seems be exiting the apex. This is what I mean by excreting spores. In other images, the apex is clearly broken as if something has been excreted.
Hi Nick I see what you are referring to but the spore insn’t within the cystidium but behind it. As you change focus from the surface of the cystidium through to the rear the spore becomes more apparent. Even with coloured cells such as this, there is an amazing ability of the optic to see right through a cell. I don’t really see a ruptured cystidium, just increasingly out of focus.
Hope this helps. It takes a long time to get to know all the nuances of microscopy.
Regards, Chris
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