Very popular Fungi under Oak..

[juliejam]

Been finding these alot lately..growing around Oak along a grass pathway..
The largest cap was over 5inches across .. didnt notice any smell and no taste..



This small yellow fungi was growing under young Oak..very delicate and sticky cap...could this be a possible 'yellow fieldcap' Bolbitius vitellinus





Appreciated help with ID please..

Many thanx

Julie

[Chris Yeates]

hi JJ

#1 is a handsome fellow, but I'll pass on it - sorry!

#2 spot on with this one - the photo's perfect for ID, 2 stages, 2 views

nice one

Chris

[leifus]

Number 2 looks right to me

id be interested to see what no. 1 is - very nice!!

[fairplay]

Hi Julie,

Your first shot looks to be a dead ringer for Melanoleuca grammopodia (English name coming to a High St store near you soon !)

Look up new Phillips Pg 99, top right hand corner.

You are right with 2nd photo, but 'they' have changed the name to B.titubans.

Neil.

Looking at the A-Z, this cap is very different, so I looked at Fungi of Switzerland, but they only have listed a M.graminicola and a look- a-like M.stridula. YOU THE JURY DECIDE !!

[juliejam]

Originally Posted by Chris Yeates

hi JJ

#1 is a handsome fellow, but I'll pass on it - sorry!

#2 spot on with this one - the photo's perfect for ID, 2 stages, 2 views

nice one

Chris

Thanx Chris for confirming one of the above...hopefully some one else would have come across this handsome fungi before..

Julie

[juliejam]

Originally Posted by fairplay

Hi Julie,

Your first shot looks to be a dead ringer for Melanoleuca grammopodia (English name coming to a High St store near you soon !)

Look up new Phillips Pg 99, top right hand corner.

You are right with 2nd photo, but 'they' have changed the name to B.titubans.

Neil.

Thanx Neil ...looks like ive found yet another Cavalier then..

Your such a nice guy helping me out with all the book ref details etc.cheers..

Julie

[fairplay]

Ah, but did you see my edit Julie ? I'm sure I'm pretty near the mark though, it's just too much hassle for me going through all the definitions, checklists etc.
BUT MAL'S GOOD AT THAT Come on Mal - what have we got ?

Neil.

[Chris Yeates]

I'm never happy with Melanoleucas I find; the key in British Fungus Flora 8 (Watling & Turnbull) is not esay to use and the authors themselves admit that much work needs to be done on the genus

I think that Melanoleuca is almost certainly the correct genus though
not much help really!

Chris

[flaxton]

Neil
As Chris says with the fruitbody it would "only" be difficult without it your suggestion is as good as any The description does say cap colour from light to dark grey-brown but it does look DARK

Mal

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by fairplay

Hi Julie,

Your first shot looks to be a dead ringer for Melanoleuca grammopodia (English name coming to a High St store near you soon !)

Look up new Phillips Pg 99, top right hand corner.

You are right with 2nd photo, but 'they' have changed the name to B.titubans.

Neil.

Looking at the A-Z, this cap is very different, so I looked at Fungi of Switzerland, but they only have listed a M.graminicola and a look- a-like M.stridula. YOU THE JURY DECIDE !!

Oh the joys of mycology - I have just checked to see whether the illustration in the new Phillips is the same as the old one and it is (I agree the fungus in question looks like that one)

however I then cross-checked this with British Fungus Flora 8 treatment of Melanoleuca I looked to see which illustrations that work sanctioned; significantly perhaps, very few of those in Phillips are in fact . . . an exception being that both the M. melaleuca and M. arcuata of Phillips are considered to be what we now call M. polioleuca

in BFF8 for M. grammopodia it talks of a tall elegant stem (it also lacks facial cystidia but let's not go there) - I'm not sure that's true for this one?

of the illustrations cited in BFF8 the highest proportion appears to be in M.C.Cooke's Illustrations all those years ago (I'm very lucky that we have a complete run of the Cooke books (boom boom!) at work so will see what I can do with them tomorrow); BFF8 also lists a number of illustrations in Lange's Flora Agaricina Danica I have checked through that (calm down I don't have the 2 grand required for the original, but the excellent Italian 1993 limited edition reprint - which was expensive enough!) in that grammopodium does indeed have a tall elegant stem, rather different that in this collection (in fact in shape if not in colour it looks very like the "cognata" of Phillips . . . aaaargh!!)

from Lange the closest match looks to be his Tricholoma arcuatum f. robustum which is clearly not the interpretation of arcuatum in Phillips; for cognata - which is not always a spring species - BFF8 lists as well as the Lange arcuatum, a Tricholoma cognatum (which looks nothing like the other plate - diff. cap colour -but see below) plus the illustration (as cognatum) in Fungi of Switzerland 3

finally BFF says that M. cognata is variable especially in cap colour, but that it "can be readily identified in the field by the beautiful pinkish cream gills when young which darken to a pale ochraceous with age"

phew! from all that I bet you can see why I find Melanoleuca such a mess, and generall pretend I haven't seen them - if even the specialist works clearly have different species concepts what hope for the rest of us? I think we might need to wait a good number of years until the situation sorts itself out - or the DNA crew will tell us it's all just one variable species after all!

will get back on this when I've looked at the Cooke plates - promise it'll be shorter post!

Chris