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I nearly trod on this mushroom as I was heading towards a large bolete on a wide grass verge at the side of the road. It didn’t look particularly interesting but I thought I may as well take a few photos, so photographed the top and then turned it over to see the underside. What a surprise! The stem and gills are almost fluorescent orange! The cap is 45 mm across, the height of the whole mushroom is 65 mm. The stem appears to be hollow and has split from top to bottom. I’m assuming it is a waxcap but I can’t work out which one. I’d appreciate any help!
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Hi this is another example where the mantra I was taught by experienced mycologists when I was starting out is relevant: “one fungus is not a fungus”; and ignore old, weathered specimens. To be fair, when one is starting out it isn’t often clear if a specimen is old and weathered – trust me this one is, with all the colour washed out of the cap. It’s perhaps
Hygrocybe coccinea. You did right to show the underside as well. As an example the mossy lawn here has lots of Hygrocybes with bright orange caps – they are
H. psittacinawith all the green slime washed/worn off; checking the stem apices (where the green colour survives) reveals their true identity. regards
Chris
spinyanteater wrote:I nearly trod on this mushroom as I was heading towards a large bolete on a wide grass verge at the side of the road. It didn’t look particularly interesting but I thought I may as well take a few photos, so photographed the top and then turned it over to see the underside. What a surprise! The stem and gills are almost fluorescent orange!
The cap is 45 mm across, the height of the whole mushroom is 65 mm. The stem appears to be hollow and has split from top to bottom. I’m assuming it is a waxcap but I can’t work out which one. I’d appreciate any help!
cap.jpgside.jpgunderside.jpggillattachment.jpg
The specimen seems a bit too robust for H. coccinea, and the cap colour is not typical. The gills and stem remind me of H. splendidissima, and perhaps H. punicea. I have seen examples of H. punicea with ‘washed out’ caps as per the first post. But H. punicea tends to have (always has?) a more fibrous.
If you had kept it, and dried it, you might have smelt honey had it been H. splendidissima.
Leif wrote:
The specimen seems a bit too robust for H. coccinea, and the cap colour is not typical. The gills and stem remind me of H. splendidissima, and perhaps H. punicea. I have seen examples of H. punicea with ‘washed out’ caps as per the first post. But H. punicea tends to have (always has?) a more fibrous.If you had kept it, and dried it, you might have smelt honey had it been H. splendidissima.
So do I take it, Leif, that you disagree with my comments re old/washed out single specimens? Of course the cap colour is not typical -it’s old/washed out and may even be showing signs of secondary infection –Cladosporiumetc. I have to say I am a bit wary of basing ID’s on smelling such – maybe it’s just me . . . Chris
Chris Yeates wrote:Leif wrote:
The specimen seems a bit too robust for H. coccinea, and the cap colour is not typical. The gills and stem remind me of H. splendidissima, and perhaps H. punicea. I have seen examples of H. punicea with ‘washed out’ caps as per the first post. But H. punicea tends to have (always has?) a more fibrous.If you had kept it, and dried it, you might have smelt honey had it been H. splendidissima.
So do I take it, Leif, that you disagree with my comments re old/washed out single specimens? Of course the cap colour is not typical -it’s old/washed out and may even be showing signs of secondary infection –Cladosporiumetc. I have to say I am a bit wary of basing ID’s on smelling such – maybe it’s just me . . . Chris
Hello Chris. Calm down, I simply posted my thoughts, that’s all. Some Hygrocybe such as H. quieta and H. punicea regularly develop pale caps, others don’t. I’ve seen lots of H. coccinea, and never seen one with a cap like that shown. That’s not to say they don’t occur, but it would be very atypical, assuming my experience is representative. Hence I think we need to consider that it could be one of several species, rather than concluding that it is H. coccinea.
Of course I’m talking about southern softies, Northern fungi might be tougher.
😆 Anyway I doubt very much that we can get an ID from these photos. Having one in the hand would be a bit better as then we could judge size better. Incidentally, a smell of honey from a drying/dried specimen would be a strong indication in my view, it can be quite strong.Sorry, perhaps I should have made it clear that I did realise the the cap colour was faded and I was looking for advice on red-stemmed Hygrocybe. It did look very much like splendidissima to me, but as that is so rare, it seemed unlikely. The photos of coccinea on first-nature look thinner and less robust than mine, but looking at the photos on wiki commons, they look more like mine. As there does seem to be a possibility of it being splendidissima, the cap is now sitting on a glass slide and the stem is drying in the airing cupboard. I went back yesterday to see if there were more, but in the few intervening hours the council had mowed the entire area
Do give it a sniff when drying, and once dry, it’s not proof, but does add to the evidence either way. Lawnmowers are indeed a hazard … By the way, don’t discount a species because it is rare. I see far more Otidea species than Peziza, which is not what the books would have us expect. I think it is because we have sandy soils down here. And I recently found three collection of Tremella steidleri, despite there being only ~20 records for the entire country, and Roy Miller over in Sussex made a collection too.
😯 Quote:By the way, don’t discount a species because it is rare
Thanks Leif, I will bear that in mind in future.Sorry to be a nuisance but I have another question: I’ve dried the mushroom, it smells quite strongly, and to me it smells of honey. However I don’t have any other dried Hygrocybe to compare with. What do coccinea and punicea smell like when dry?
Boertmann lists them as having a neutral smell and taste, but makes no specific reference to dried specimens. Incidentally, H coccinea has broadly adnate gills, whereas H punicea and H splendidissima have narrowly adnate gills. In other words, part of the gill meets the stem, but minimally so in the latter cases, which seems to be the case in your photos. I’d say this was most likely H splendidissima with an unusual cap colouration. Incidentally with these species it is important to determine the nature of the cap and stem surface, to check if they are smooth, slimy, greasy, or matt. This information will help with an ID.
You could keep an eye open on this area in future, they tend to recur each year, and see if you can find what I assume would be more typical specimens.
Thanks Leif, that’s brilliant, much appreciated. I will definitely make regular checks on this verge in the hope of finding more. It seems a good verge for waxcaps – I had a look yesterday to see if anything escaped the mowing and found a Parrot Waxcap and a Butter Waxcap
For Hygrocybe splendidissima, Boertmann say that it “shows a considerable variation in size and shape of the fruitbodies, but the colours are rather constant”. I have only found H. splendidissima a few times but it has always been bright red in colour. I think it is unlikely that you would get fading to the yellow colour we see here. I agree with Chris that this one is beyond identification, certainly without microscopy. If we didn’t have information on the smell, I would have thought this this was likely to be H. quieta, given the gill attachment and the paler yellow of the cap, contrasting with the orange gills and stem. The cap typically fades when dried out.
But I think it is a lost cause.
Ken
Ken, you shouldn’t take Boertmann’s book as gospel, excellent though it is. As an example, he does not mention white forms of H. psittacina, and yet the Hampshire Fungus Recording Group came across white forms 15 or so years ago. We only knew what they were due to the trace of green at the stem apex. So I fail to see how you can say “I think it is unlikely that you would get fading to the yellow colour we see here” especially since you say you’ve only seen it a few times. I didn’t suggest that Boertmann’s book was gospel. I was talking about the likelihood that you would get fading from the typical scarlet colours to the yellow we see in the picture. You said yourself that some species typically fade and others tend not to. In Boertmann’s view, the colours are “rather constant”. Hygrocybe splendidissima is not a common species so my experience is limited. But when I have found it, it has always been bright red in colour. So I would turn the issue around. To demonstrate that you have found a relatively uncommon species you need sound evidence. I don’t see the evidence here. For example, where are the examples of yellow capped H. splendidissima that contradict Boertmann’s findings? Other than a suggestion that the smell of the dried mushroom might have been of honey, there is no strong basis for suggesting this is H. splendidissima rather than something else. I am not putting a name to it. You have made a suggestion. I don’t see the evidence to back this up.
Ken
Calm down Ken. I suspect that we can agree on 3 candidate species, H. coccinea, H. punicea and H. splendidissima.
I tend to think the first is unlikely due to the gill attachment, the robust stem, and the smell of honey.
H. punicea is possible, it does have a cap that often fades, and narrowly adnexed gills, but the stem tends to be fibrous and it does not smell of honey.
H. splendidissima has narrowly attached gills, a robust stem, and a smell of honey when drying according to Boertmann (although I can only smell the honey when it is dried, at which point it is strong). I have seen many example of this species and gills and stem are a perfect patch. The feature that does not match is of course the yellow cap. I have seen fading, with whitish patches, but nothing like the one shown.
My view is that on balance this is most likely an unusual form of H. splendidissima, which is why I suggested that our insectivorous friend keep his/her eyes open in the same spot.
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