Help with ID please and advice on keys

[Bill S]

Hi all

First post here, (excellent site btw) and I'd greatly appreciate it is someone could spare the time to identify what is in the pictures below. This and several like it have come up in my lawn in the last week (southern UK) and I thought it would be a snap to identify as it's an unusual time of year and it has a hollow stem, which I think is quite unusual?

It doesn't seem to have any sign of veil remnants on the stem, the spores are inky black/dark violet, it has a faint smell of aniseed, a hollow stem with no bruising or discolouration noticed after I picked it, a section of the gills are very pale rather than the majority which are very dark.

Also, I used to use keys to separate and identify other groups of organisms, are there any good keys for UK fungi?

Many thanks in advance.

Regards

Bill

[CapAndBracket]

Hi Bill, and welcome to the magical world of mycology.

If your specimen has light and dark gills this is suggesting one of the mottle gills (Panaeolus. sp ) to me, doubtless you will get many comments from the experts during this evening. Actually if i may say so a shot of a specimen in situ with another beside it arranged to show stem and gills would be good.(not always possible i know).

As for keys, i think to start with either the Roger phillips or Michael jordan book would be your best starting point (both are affordable and both would be my suggestion), keys as you are probably aware are not easy to work with (i know how i'm struggling with them on dung fungi which seems a small subject area), i don't know if there is a complete fungi key. await the view of others.

Cheers J.P.

[mykonik]

Originally Posted by Bill S

Hi all

First post here, (excellent site btw) and I'd greatly appreciate it is someone could spare the time to identify what is in the pictures below. This and several like it have come up in my lawn in the last week (southern UK) and I thought it would be a snap to identify as it's an unusual time of year and it has a hollow stem, which I think is quite unusual?

It doesn't seem to have any sign of veil remnants on the stem, the spores are inky black/dark violet, it has a faint smell of aniseed, a hollow stem with no bruising or discolouration noticed after I picked it, a section of the gills are very pale rather than the majority which are very dark.

Also, I used to use keys to separate and identify other groups of organisms, are there any good keys for UK fungi?

Many thanks in advance.

Regards

Bill

Hi Bill,

This looks suspiciously like the Common Ink Cap, Coprinopsis atramentaria to me - unlikely to be a Panaeolus since the spores are far too dark (inky black) I have to say !

The pale areas in the gills are where they are not yet ripe - they would gradually become black as the spores ripen and the rest of the cap becomes a liquid mess as it disintegrates to release the spores !

Nick

[Fungus Ken]

The other strong indication that this is Coprinus rather than Panaeolus is the spacing of the gills.

In Panaeolus you would see a noticeable gap between each of the gills to allow for the spores to be ejected from the basidia into the middle of the gap and then to drop between them under gravity without sticking to either gill. The spores should then have a good chance of catching the air currents and getting blown away.

In Coprinus, as in the specimen in the photo, the gills are so closely packed that spores could not be ejected from the basidia and then drop to be released into the air.

The spores of Coprinus therefore ripen at the bottom edge of the cap where they can easily be dispersed into the air. The edge of the cap then deliquesces to reveal the next layer of the hymenium with ripening spores, and so on as the cap shrinks upwards.

Ken

[NickCantle]

What a good thing to know Ken, thanks for sharing that

[Bill S]

Thanks very much for those replies. In situ it looked most like this example from the Gallery



but I also found some other specimens which were younger, far more fragile and delicate looking, somewhat like these



Thanks again

Bill