Conocybe confirmation

[watsthat]

I found this last summer on horse manure. Am I on the right track with Conocybe and would anyone like to comment or add to that.

All replies very much appreciated

Pete

[Leif]

I'll leave this one to those who know what they are talking about, which in this instance does not include me. I am curious what size these are. I used to regularly find a 'Conocybe' on horse poop in the New Forest, and they are not unlike those you show, and were maybe 1cm across, and 10cm tall.

[Chris Yeates]

a pity that this was from last summer . . .

if they were from a Yorkshire site I would have been prepared to have a look at dried material

my money would be on Conocybe pubescens but you can't do these without a microscope, I'm afraid . . .

cheers

Chris

[mollisia]

Hello,

Conocybe is a genus where you can't do anything serious without exhaustive microscoping. This starts with the surface of the stipe at the apex, where you have to look whether you have hair-like cystidia, lecythiform cystidia, or a mixture of both. As the hair-like cystidia are very easily overlooked or collapsed in dried material, that should be done immediately after bringing the specimens home. You need then size of the spores, size of the cheilocystidia (especially the "head"), basidia, cristal formation with ammonia adding.
Macroscopically your collections has as interesting characters the striate stipe (what suggest it to be a memeber of the group with lecythiform cystidia) and the bulbouse stipe base. Also it is apparantly a quite big species. I would not be astonished if it is one of those species that form needles in the gill trama with ammonia added.

best regards,
Andreas

[watsthat]

Thanks for the very interesting points

Very much appreciated

Pete