Dark gill edged Entoloma

Hi Mal,

Carneogriseum keys out in the section with blue tinges (using FE5 & 5a). Your species I believe is in the section with brown fruitbodies. There are about 9 species which have a brown (not blue-black) gill edge:

I made several collections like it on Sunday. I think you have E. longistriatum: Noordeloos recognises 3 var’s. longistriatum, sarcitulum and microsporum – so it’s pretty variable! Colours can be very variable from yellow-brown to more grey brown but all are translucently striate. The gill edge can be brown (or not!) and can be fertile, heterogenous or sterile!! The only likely alternative I feel is E. turci but this has a cap which is non-striate and the “gills and stipe base turn slowly red when bruised”. I think if you stick it in a pot of water and let it hydrate, you will find the cap becomes translucently striate, often almost to the centre. It seems fairly common on unimproved grassland.

Here are images of the collections that I referred to I my post of 7th Sept. Having given them these names, I’m not always convinced by the ‘reddening’ aspect of E. turci! Both lots were photographed after the stems were in jars of water overnight.

Hello Andreas,

I agree that re-wetting dried caps in this way doesn’t always bring you back to what a naturally hygrophanous cap would look like.

Also the specimens had been kept in a fridge for a week. Nevertheless, the smaller of the pale specimens was translucently striate to half way (although this doesn’t show up well in my ‘average’ images) and the darker specimens were not at all striate.

I am no expert in Leptonia’s but they seem very variable with age of fruitbody and older specimens of some species I guess may become more scally? Image No. 277a in Fungi Europaei 5A shows Entoloma longistriatum var. longistriatum with fairly scally caps.