Psathyrella spadiceogrisea I presume ....

[SheffieldLass]

I happened across this one yesterday as it was getting dark ... which made up a little for not finding any morels or scarlet elf cups. And the camera battery had died so there are no pictures insitu, so these were taken on my lawn today, so not representative of the habitat. It was solitary on a grassy bank under a field edge Fraxinus.

Having done the micro analysis it looks like Psathyrella spadiceogrisea, which is the common one, and I did manage to find a forked pleurocystidia, but no crystals or yellow pigment. The details of P spadiceogrisea and P fatua are so similar, is there anything apart from crystals and yellow pigment to separate them?


gill squash showing cheilo and pleurocystidia
cheilocystidia. There were some very occasional ones shaped like the pleurocystidia.
forked pleurocystidia, or should that be frog-eyed pleurocystidia. Pretty much all the others where without forks, but similar shape, but some were shaped like the cheilocystidia with the more pointed ends, in fact quite acutely pointed.

Spores were typically 7.7-8.7 x 4.4-5.0um, q average 1.8. Clamps also present.

Melanie

[mollisia]

Dear Melanie,

macroscopically and by the season I would have not much doubt for P. spadiceogrisea.
Microscopically it is at least not very typical. The shape and distribution of the cheilocystidia are usually quite different in P. spadiceogrisea. There you have utriform cheilocystidia, which are +/- scattered between sphaeropedunculate cells. In your foto I see broadly fusiform cheilocystidia which form a complete steril band. I have not seen this in P. spadiceogrisea up to now.
But the microscopy, especially what concerns the cheilocystidia, is rather variable in this species, more than usual in Psathyrella. And the bifurcate cystidia, which you have rarely seen, are also a typical element of P. spadiceogrisea. The vary from scattered to very rare, but usually you find at least a few.

So all in all I would still think it is P. spadiceogrisea nevertheless, but microscopically quite far away from the typical ones.

best regards,
Andreas

[SheffieldLass]

Thanks Andreas