Psilocybe?

[SheffieldLass]

Every time it rains I get a flush of these popping up in my lawn.


The areas they appear in do not have mammal dung of any kind, but they are under the flight paths of the small birds between my bushes/hedges and the bird feeders, and I have a lot of birds, and hence a lot of droppings fertilising these spots.

Cheilocystidia are abundant:


Caulocystidia are abundant sometimes:


Basidia 4 spored, clamps frequent, spores (11.4) 11.9-13.5 (14.3) x (7.6) 7.9-8.9 (9.8)um Qav 1.5


The shape of the gills and colour of the spores suggest Psilocybe/Stropharia, but there are no chrysocystidia, which rules out Stropharia. Under Psilocybe the closest I can find, fitting the spore size in particular is Psilocybe coprophila. Though they are meant to be on herbivore dung, which theses aren't. When I first saw them I thought Conocybe/Pholiotina, but they were very young and the caps not much opened and the spore colour not developed sufficiently, and the cap isn't a hymeniderm.

Does Psilocybe coprophila look right here, or is there something obvious that I have missed? I've used FAN4 and FN keys. 'On soil' as opposed to 'on dung' does not get anything remotely close.

Cheers
Melanie

[Andy Overall]

Originally Posted by SheffieldLass

Every time it rains I get a flush of these popping up in my lawn.


The areas they appear in do not have mammal dung of any kind, but they are under the flight paths of the small birds between my bushes/hedges and the bird feeders, and I have a lot of birds, and hence a lot of droppings fertilising these spots.

Cheilocystidia are abundant:


Caulocystidia are abundant sometimes:


Basidia 4 spored, clamps frequent, spores (11.4) 11.9-13.5 (14.3) x (7.6) 7.9-8.9 (9.8)um Qav 1.5


The shape of the gills and colour of the spores suggest Psilocybe/Stropharia, but there are no chrysocystidia, which rules out Stropharia. Under Psilocybe the closest I can find, fitting the spore size in particular is Psilocybe coprophila. Though they are meant to be on herbivore dung, which theses aren't. When I first saw them I thought Conocybe/Pholiotina, but they were very young and the caps not much opened and the spore colour not developed sufficiently, and the cap isn't a hymeniderm.

Does Psilocybe coprophila look right here, or is there something obvious that I have missed? I've used FAN4 and FN keys. 'On soil' as opposed to 'on dung' does not get anything remotely close.

Cheers
Melanie

Hi Melanie

These look to be Agrocybe pediades to me.

Andy

[SheffieldLass]

Originally Posted by Andy Overall

Hi Melanie

These look to be Agrocybe pediades to me.

Andy

Hi Andy

I found another in a heathy part of the forest yesterday, a bit bigger than those in my lawn but microscopically the same thing.

Certainly some of the micro features of Agrocybe pediades match, but it was the lack of hymeniderm that had made me rule out Agrocybe. I've got FAN6 out as am typing this and have spotted that the hymeniderm on A pediades is irregular (and that appears in their drawing of it too), and that in older ones only partly present. Which could explain that, particularly as it is so dry and the fungi shrivel as soon as they pop their heads above the surface. Also it shows that some have crystals (or some sort of clots) on the cheilocystidia which my specimen from yesterday certainly had. I'd not seen it in the others. Also in that one I found a couple of pleurocystidia, like the cystidia, which FAN also say may be present, but scarce. So that again fits. And they don't need to be on dung ... so that one solved too.

I'll also compare these microscopically with some I found last year over near Sheffield... they were considerably bigger than these of this year, but as Chris is wont to point out, size and colour are the least useful characters to base an id on! You live and learn .....

So thanks, I think your are right with that.

And just checking the Scarborough list, they haven't been recorded in 'recent' years (I think that means within c 60-70 years, though Chris will no doubt find records for them here more recently .....)

Melanie