Confirmation or ID please

[Ditiola]

Hi

On 23nd January 2010, I photographed and collected a large decurent-gilled agaric from under Cedar trees near Derby. Photo below.

url=http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/archive/showphoto.php?photo=121420][/url]

Spores
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I looked through all available photographs but was unable to find anything similar.
I tried the Clitocybe key in Funga Nordica, but was unable to key it out there. I then went back a stage and tried the keys to genus in Funga Nordica and it keyed out to Infundibulicybe, and then followed by the species key to I.gigas. Infundibulicybe has been split from Clitocybe in Funga Nordica and I.gigas is synonymous with Clitocybe maxima. There are only two UK records for this taxon in the BMS database.

Distinctive Features:
Very large cap with in-rolled margin when young
Short stocky stipe
Crowded decurent gills with forking near stipe
Narrowly Pip-shaped to ellipsoid spores


My Description of material collected
Cap: 12-14cm, smooth to slightly silky, Convex at first with unrolled margin, then flat with +/- slight depression, Dull brown drying pale buff.
Stem: hollow, 6cm x 1.5 – 2cm, sometimes slightly flattened concolorous with cap, very slightly longitudinally fibrillose.
Gills: pale brown, edge concolorous, crowded, decurent, some gills forking near the stipe.
Flesh: Pale in the cap centre, concolorous with cap around all edges, Smell mealy/spermatic? Taste mild to very slightly acrid.
Spores: white, non-amyloid, pip-shaped (dacryoid) 5.2-8.5 x 4.5-5.2 (most were around 7.5 x 5)
Basidia: Up to 40 microns long, 4-spored.
Cystidia: A few cystidia found, these where clavate 7.2-8.7 wide.
Pileipellis: A Trichoderm

This material to be dried and then kept for a voucher specimen.

Does anyone know this taxon?

Can anyone confirm my ID ?

Or what else might it be?

The only character that does not quite fit the description for C.maxima is that the gills are perhaps too brown? Although there is one photos on the internet labelled as C.maxima and with brownish gills, (but is these correctly labelled?) This photo is included below and is from the Associazione Micologica Adriatica :




Peter

[mollisia]

Hello,

if you still have material left, and you have time, then may be it can give a hint when you re-do a preparation of the spores again. If you have Cotton Blue, stin it with that. If you have not, stain it with Congo Red. If you have neither, you need not re-do a preparation. But if you have and make a preparation again, open the iris aperture more than in this picture (at least it seems as if it is quite closed, but I'm not sure. May be the whole foto is just curved due to the objective?).
My guess for all that is, that the spores might be slightly punctate and that your fungus might be Lepista panaeolus s.l.. If the spores are smooth in Cotton Blue, it is nevertheless intersting to see, whether the wall becomes intensly blue or if the stain is just the usual (but not very intense) blue. If the first is the case, the spores are cyanophilic, what is a feature for certain species in this group.

Clitocybe maxima is a synonym to Clitocybe geotropa (or now Infundibulicybe geotropa). Your fungus is not Clitocybe geotropa!

A pity that you don't have a spore print. I would have bet it would have been pinkish-cream ...

best regards,
Andreas

[Ditiola]

Andreas

Thanks: I was only able to get a thin spore deposit. The specimens had probably got too cold. The thin deposit looked white on a microscope slide even when scrapped into a little pile.

However I have looked at the spores again using Congo Red and with the condenser shut down a bit more, and you where right they are minutely spiny.

New photos of spores:







So I agree they must be Lepista. It can be difficult trying to identify fungi out of season as the cold and frost can change their appearance.

I found Lepista flacida at the same site in November a few metres away from these specimens.

Thanks again

Peter

[thebeard]

incredible photo by the way peter!

[Ditiola]

Thanks
I went out to test my new lens, This is the first photo with it, and I am very pleased with it. I just need to be sure of the name now. I think Andreas is probably right, but I will wait till I find some young specimens before I feel completely confident.

Pete

[fairplay]

So what's the camera/lens Peter as you have a fantastic depth of field there.

Neil.

[SheffieldLass]

Originally Posted by Ditiola

So I agree they must be Lepista. It can be difficult trying to identify fungi out of season as the cold and frost can change their appearance.

I found Lepista flacida at the same site in November a few metres away from these specimens.

Peter

I found a group of Lepista nuda a few days ago. A few had the distinctive purple stem and gills, but the older ones had lost all sign of purple to the stems and gills (and the smell too). If I'd just seen them I'd have not really known what they were.

Melanie

[Ditiola]

Neil
I am using a four-thirds format SLR. It’s a Panasonic Lumix L10. I chose it because there were only two SLR's with completely fold-out screens and the other was the Olympus E3 which I could not afford at the time. (no more lying on the ground with my ear in the mud) I have been using a Sigma 10 - 20 Wide angle (20-40 equivalent in 35mm format), but I have just replaced my Panasonic Kit lens with an Olympus 12 - 60mm (24 - 120 equivalent in 35mm format), although not quite as wide at the wide angle end as the Sigma wide angle, it focus's a tad closer and gives similar if not slightly better results as the background is not thrown so far away, and its got better optics, although I do some tinkering on the computer, but that’s top secret

It now means I only have to carry two lenses’s my new Olympus 12-60 and my Olympus 50mm macro.

Peter

[CapAndBracket]

I would like to agree with Lepista as well having found them as in the origonal photo and being totally confused until finding fresh ones at a later date and watching them age.

Cheers J.P.

[fairplay]

Yes, pretty impressive.

I was going to get an Olympus myself to go with my 2 Olympus microscopes, but in the end I bought a Nikon D90 with 18-200 VR ED plus Micro Nikkor 105mm 2.8 VR ED (Macro).
The Macro is a beautiful lens, but I'm disappointed with it's depth of field. That is probably because I cannot be bothered to use a tripod to enable me to shut down the aperture.

So I'm a little envious of the depth of field you have shown !

Neil.