Laccaria species, but which?

[SheffieldLass]

I found these in October, quite a large group, maybe 40-50 between a birch and hawthorn, in acid grass/heath mosaic, very pretty Laccaria. At the time I did measured the spores, but couldn't come to any conclusion as to which they were as they are so similar anyway, but they just didn't seem quite like the usual deceptive deceiver. Going back through my records with the aid of the Funga Nordica key, the scaly cap and contrasting fibres on the stem, and the pink rather than lilac tones seem to suggest Laccaria proxima.

Is there enough detail here to id to species level?




Thanks

Melanie

[Chris Yeates]

hi Melanie

I agree that these could well be proxima, but the situation with this genus is not a clear one (I know that Andreas is no fan of Laccaria)

you will note that Funga Nordica still has a different interpretation of L. fraterna than we in the UK and elsewhere . . . that just tends to highlight the difficulties with the genus

when keys start to say things like "scaly cap and contrasting fibres on the stem, and the pink rather than lilac tones" I tend to go off and look at asco's and 'hyphomycetes'

best

Chris

[mollisia]

Hallo,

I don't have an idea to your Laccaria, but it is not what we here call Laccaria proxima. Our species grows in Sphagnum, ist quite big and tall, brick red to rusty or fox red, but never lilac or pink or this kind of colour.

I take to opportunity to show two pictures of two Laccaria collections. Both were made on sandy, +/- acid soil, quite wet, border of a lake, in the vicinity of Salix aurita bushes and also near Populus x euroamericanus.

Is this Laccaria purpureobadia?


And this should be "normal" Laccaria laccata (var. pallidifolia acc. to the Dutch):


Any comments welcome! And yes, I like those Laccarias, but unfortunately I not often succeed in giving them a name that satsfies me ....

best regards,
Andreas

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by mollisia

Hallo,

Is this Laccaria purpureobadia?


Andreas

hi Andreas

I have only found this once (although it has to be said it is only recently that I have got back to noticing agarics - having spent most time on plant parasites, ascomycetes and 'fungi imperfecti'); that was over 25 years ago. However I remember it quite well as something which was clearly 'different'. I sent it to Derek Reid at Kew and he commented that - based as it was on dried material it was probably this and it is now at Kew under this name.

So I think that, on that basis, what you have is 'very probably this'; my memory of it is that it just didn't look like amethystina, but had more the habitus of proxima but with that dark purple tinge.

best wishes

Chris

[mollisia]

Hallo Chris,

thank you for your comment, which I got in the last two years from several mycologists in very similar way.

And now I show the whole foto, of which I have shown above the left and the right part. What the hell are those three in the middle? Hybrids? I can't think of anything other, to be true.



I sware that this is no Phtoshop manipulated foto and the colours are very true on my screen.

In the biotop there the normal coloured species at the right side was very common, hundreds of them. The purpureobadia from the left side were onyl those three that are shown on the picture, I didn't find more. The three "hybrids" in the middle were also a group for its own, perhaps 10 meters away from the group of the purpureobadia.

Very strange think, isn't it? By the way, it's not only the colour, but also the surface of the cap that is different between the left and the right Laccarias. I'm quite sure, that it is not the same species in different colours only!

best regards,
Andreas

[SheffieldLass]

Hello Andreas and Chris

Interesting photos Andreas, food for thought ...

I think that answers my question, I won't be able to ID them to species level, they are clearly a tricky genus.

All of the fungi in the group I've shown were very scurfy, like the ones shown, and definitely the prettiest group of Laccaria I've seen so far, and the caps quite big, though the stems were quite short. Where they were growing is actually a well-drained part of the site, which, as you say, doesn't fit the typical L proxima habitat ... it has Amanita fulva and Leccinum scabrum growing in association with the same birch tree which gives a further indication of the habitat they were in. At other places on the site on the same day there were Laccaria laccata looking very like the typical Laccaria laccata. And actually fairly close to the bog where it is much wetter I've got photos of a Laccaria (from about the same time but the previous year) that might fit Laccaria proxima better. They had very sturdy, long stems, with very marked (almost like candystripe) stripes, and a brick red colour.

But you've raised another point of interest, something I was wondering .... are fungi known to hybridise?

Melanie

[mollisia]

Hallo Melanie,

Originally Posted by SheffieldLass

it has Amanita fulva and Leccinum scabrum growing in association with the same birch tree which gives a further indication of the habitat they were in.

If the Leccinum scabrum was a scabrum ss.str. it should be a rather dry, +/- acid place with a somewhat disturbed or pioneer character. Leccinum scabrum ss.str. never (you know the "never" of the mycologists, do you?) gets wet feet. So in my opinion Leccinum scabrum and Laccaria proxima exclude each other from ecological point of view. But of course seomtimes such habitats lay in direct vicinity ....

But you've raised another point of interest, something I was wondering .... are fungi known to hybridise?

Psssst! Talk silent, such revolutionary thoughts are not allowed everywhere ....
To be serious, I think the professionals think hybridisation is not possible. But besides this foto I ave another one from another group of fungi, which also shows an intermediate collection. It's what is known as Suillus bresadolae var. flavogriseus (or may be even better as Suillus nueschii inval.), which was growing just in the middle between a circle of Suillus viscidus on the one side and Suillus grevillei on the other side. Exactly in the middle .....

best regards,
Andreas

[Chris Yeates]

hi Andreas

I should have expected a twist in your post - and a very interesting one too . . .

you notice that in my post I said: "it is only recently that I have got back to noticing agarics - having spent most time on plant parasites, ascomycetes and 'fungi imperfecti')"

it was because of the often exasperating diagnostic 'features' of genera such as Laccaria that I chose to ignore them

I was, at one time, very depressed when the DNA/parsimony people took over but now I think this approach will be very valuable; one problem we have on a site like this is largely trying to identify a fungus on the basis of colour and size (at the macroscopic level), which we know can be the most variable and often unreliable characters . . . you have very correctly pointed out in past posts that (analogous to what the entomologists know) it is the reproductive parts of a fungus which are often key to identifications (that is why I generally prefer the microfungi - and look at the Laboulbeniales, where virtually each cell produced by the fungus is identical and predictable within a species)

if we wanted things to be easy, we'd be birdwatchers (he said provocatively)

best wishes

Chris