Some Hygrocybe from last year

[SheffieldLass]

I've a few Hygrocybe from last year that weren't quite typical, or which I wasn't quite sure of the id. There will be a few I'll out on here over the next few days (or weeks, depending on other time pressures), and there may be some just because they they are too pretty to not post ... But this is the first ...

Found Dec 12, acidic grassland.




Basidia were 4 spored mainly and long ... 8-10um x 53-67um long


Gill trama sub-regular, to 200um long


Spores large, most constricted, with a tendency to point down (or should that be up?) (8.4) 9.0-12.4 (14.7) x (3.8) 4.3-5.7 (6.5)um, Qav 2.2

Cap slightly viscid, and bitter to taste (lick), but flesh not bitter. I find most of the viscid ones are bitter when I lick them though, which may be to do with my taste-buds being sensitive. Smell, mild, slightly fruity-acid. Gills adnate.

To me, macroscopically they look like H mucronella or H insipida, but microscopically don't seem to fit. Microscopically they seem closer to H coccinea, though the spores are perhaps a bit too frequently constricted. They appeared in this patch for a week or so, all looking like this, whereas not far away were typical H coccinea, always looking like H coccinea. The H coccinea I get do seem typically to have 'footprint' shaped spores though.

Suggestions/comments please!

Melanie

[Chris Yeates]

hi Melanie

I think the moss is Pseudoscleropodium purum if that helps

Chris

[SheffieldLass]

Originally Posted by Chris Yeates

hi Melanie

I think the moss is Pseudoscleropodium purum if that helps

Chris

I'll keep posting the Hygrocybe photos as it might turn out to be an easy way to build up the list of mosses on the site ...

Was up there today, no fungi, but the grassland was white with heath bedstraw flowers. A few weeks ago it was blue and white with heath milkwort. And should be yellow soon with the tormentil and hawkweeds. And then white, red, yellow, orange, pink, blue, green, peach, mauve, turquoise from the waxcaps ....

Well there was Hypholoma capnoides in the adjacent conifer planatation ... but then there is always Hypholoma capnoides there. It will be one for the records when I find it isn't fruiting.

Melanie