Entoloma - any brave souls?

[SheffieldLass]

Entolomas are coming through again on my upland acidic (slightly heathy) grassland site, in good numbers. I picked five from different locations thinking they were all the same .. well they looked pretty much the same. Did a quick check on one to see if they were E conferendum, which is common up there. It wasn't ... luckily. It meant I went on to check the others ... 3 were E conferendum, the other two appeared to be a different species.

I've tried to key them out, without reaching a conclusion. I think they are in the Nolanea subgenus, section Endochromonema, subsection Endochromonemaa ... because they have quite long fusiform gill trama cells (to 300+um approx), very occasional clamps, no obvious cheilocystidia, intracellular pigment only and not coagulating into granules, pileipellis appears to be a cutis.
Cap size 22mm dia, spore sizes majority between 9-10.5 x 7-8.1um, Qav 1.3, 4 spore basidia, basidia 8-11 x 29-34um. Gills looked free, but did have a very fine ridge connecting the gill proper to the stipe. Flesh very thin. Spore print quite pale pink for an Entoloma, and the final gill colour certainly a paler more delicate colour than E conferendum goes. The cap had hollows, almost cracks where striations normally are (don't know whether that is significant, but the E conferendum hadn't done the same, however it has been very dry). And they smell strongly, especially when dried, of very smelly feet (bed-bug rancid when fresh), similar but much stronger smell than E conferendum ...


occasional clamp
gill trama

Any brave takers?

Melanie

By the way I got some nice pictures of intracellular pigment coagulating into granules in the E conferendum.
E conferendum

[FungiJohn]

Looks like a 'No' so far Melanie

A shame really, as they can be found almost every month of the year ... I think Nick should take them on with Cortinarius, Inocybe and ...

Nice pictures btw

John

[Alantb]

Hi Melanie.
I've looked at a few pinkish Entoloma and unless they are dead obvious I've tended to record them as 'doubtful'. I suspect that some day soon someone with DNA apparatus is going to tell us that a lot of them are the same thing under different hats.
Do you have the Norwegian books? there's a big Entoloma section in Vol 2 which MAY help. The presence of clamps in the pileipellis should eliminate a lot, the pink ones I've seen (E. catalaunicum, on limestone) don't have them, according to B&K.
I like the micro pics - I do the same thing myself but your pics are much clearer than mine - what is your setup? Should we have a forum about micropics and how to get better ones?
Best of luck - Alan

[FungiJohn]

Originally Posted by Alantb

Hi Melanie.

Should we have a forum about micropics and how to get better ones?
Best of luck - Alan

A very good idea Alan!

John

[SheffieldLass]

At the moment I'm using a combination of FAN1, Funga Nordica and Noordeloos's Entoloma website, which give a lot of info, but very few macro colour pictures. They are all by Noordeloos anyway, so maybe it is not surprising they all key out to the same small group .... trouble is, the two that seem closest are very rare, which makes me suspicious that I've got it wrong ... Perhaps one for Kew ...

I'm wanting to get a grip of the grassland Entolomas this year, this year's challenge! I have a love/hate relationship with E conferendum though ... They are very common here, but at least it only takes a second or two to identify them under the microscope. So a mixture of disappointment but also relief that I'm not going to waste the next 5 hours failing to reach an id!

Alan ... my set up is Brunel's DCM130 down-the-microscope camera on a fairly basic Zenith microscope. What suits me well is that it all goes real-time and big size onto my computer screen so I don't have to peer down the eyepiece at all. And I capture shots as I go along, then select the best and eliminate the rest. It is so easy ... how did they use to manage? Mind you I still go and draw out the details onto handwritten notes, as it makes me look harder! And I must get myself my own stage micrometer, just to double check / reassure myself when the spores come in on the small/large size, that it is not a blip in the measuring software or camera technology ...

Melanie

[mollisia]

Hello,

grassland Entolomas is a very intersting field, but you should have a certain level of frustration tolerance if you like to deal with that group. They can be very similar and grow at the same places - be it the blue ones or the grey ones or the others. We have now appr. 450 species of Entoloma in Europe, according to the monographs of NOORDELOOS (1985, 1995), which I find indespensible when dealing with these fungi (Fungi Europaei vol. 5 and 5A, both by NOORDELOOS)

To your Entoloma I have to say, that I don't belive that it is one of the rose coloured, but one with a dehydrated greyishbrown cap. When the cap flesh is very thin the colour of the gills is giving a rose hue to the cap. You can also observe that quite often in Agaricus, where the white caps take rose coloured hue in wet weather conditions. I have seen most of the rose coloured species and none has a habit like the one of Mel.

best regards,
Andreas

[SheffieldLass]

Originally Posted by mollisia

Hello,

grassland Entolomas is a very intersting field, but you should have a certain level of frustration tolerance if you like to deal with that group. They can be very similar and grow at the same places - be it the blue ones or the grey ones or the others. We have now appr. 450 species of Entoloma in Europe, according to the monographs of NOORDELOOS (1985, 1995), which I find indespensible when dealing with these fungi (Fungi Europaei vol. 5 and 5A, both by NOORDELOOS)

To your Entoloma I have to say, that I don't belive that it is one of the rose coloured, but one with a dehydrated greyishbrown cap. When the cap flesh is very thin the colour of the gills is giving a rose hue to the cap. You can also observe that quite often in Agaricus, where the white caps take rose coloured hue in wet weather conditions. I have seen most of the rose coloured species and none has a habit like the one of Mel.

best regards,
Andreas

I think I may be about to discover at what point my frustration tolerance vanishes .. But as I like grassland fungi I guess I have to at least try to get somewhere with the Entolomas.

I'd agree that it is a greyish-brown cap, not pink ... when you have it in your hand and don't have the light shining through its true colour is more obvious. The flesh was remarkably thin on this one, I presume why it curls up with age, and forms radial grooves/splits.

I'll try to get my hands on those monographs.

cheers
Melanie

[Alantb]

Melanie, are you telling me that you are using a PC to see images dynamically? Because what I have is a Nikon camera mounted on the third eye of a trinocular microscope and I use the 'video' output from the camera onto a miniature television. This is OK and handy for showing folk what I am looking at, but the video output is very poor quality (although it is just about good enough to focus the image) so I don't always get an very clear picture of what I am taking. I can view the pics on a laptop but only after I've taken them - i.e. as stills.
Incidentally the camera doesn't seem to like having the PC and the telly plugged in at the same time....
If you are using a PC, are you just using the Microsoft Picture Manager or something that came with the camera?

PS. did you know about the Entoloma Key by Derek Shafer?:-
1 Does it have star-shaped spores? .........Yes ---- 2 No ---- 3
2 Entoloma conferendum
3 Not covered by this Key.

Cheers, Alan

[mollisia]

Originally Posted by Alantb

PS. did you know about the Entoloma Key by Derek Shafer?:-
1 Does it have star-shaped spores? .........Yes ---- 2 No ---- 3
2 Entoloma conferendum
3 Not covered by this Key.

Perfect!
I have to tell Machiel and ask him, what the hell he is doing there with an Entoloma monograph of 1400 pages in 2 volumes.

best regards,
Andreas

[SheffieldLass]

Originally Posted by Alantb

PS. did you know about the Entoloma Key by Derek Shafer?:-
1 Does it have star-shaped spores? .........Yes ---- 2 No ---- 3
2 Entoloma conferendum
3 Not covered by this Key.

Cheers, Alan

I like that one ...

Originally Posted by Alantb

Melanie, are you telling me that you are using a PC to see images dynamically? Because what I have is a Nikon camera mounted on the third eye of a trinocular microscope and I use the 'video' output from the camera onto a miniature television. This is OK and handy for showing folk what I am looking at, but the video output is very poor quality (although it is just about good enough to focus the image) so I don't always get an very clear picture of what I am taking. I can view the pics on a laptop but only after I've taken them - i.e. as stills.
Incidentally the camera doesn't seem to like having the PC and the telly plugged in at the same time....
If you are using a PC, are you just using the Microsoft Picture Manager or something that came with the camera?

Yes they are seen dynamically. And the software came with the camera. At 10x there is a bit of a flicker (wrong word, but can't think of the right technical word), due I think to my screen refresh rate and camera frame speed being almost but not quite in sync, but at 4x and 40x it is very steady. It may be possible to adjust that, I've not looked to try, mainly as I use 40x the most. There is a very slight delay as you switch magnification as it readusts to new light levels, and as you move the object, but not to be a nuisance, and with fine focussing it is immediate. I believe with the higher resolution cameras this becomes an issue though, because pcs don't have the necessary processing speed. Although my PC is now about 5 years old, it did have a very good graphics card for the time, and the computer specified to be suitable for CAD and 3D modelling, so the graphics capability of your PC might be something to be aware of. And what you see on the screen is exactly what you get when you capture a frame, same quality.

Melanie