Omphalanoid fungi

[flaxton]

I spotted a small group of omphalina shaped fungi growing in the grassy/mossy gap between some paving slabs at home. The gills were creamy so I started looking at the Omphalina/Arrhenia species. I could get no spore print but then noticed one or two spores on the gill while I was looking for cheilocystidia.


Oops
Entoloma
By today the gills had taken on a totally different hue.



With no distinguishable cystidia but encrusted elements in the pp



I thought I would be able to id "relatively" easily but nothing quite fits.

Can anyone help?

Thanks
Mal

[SheffieldLass]

Originally Posted by flaxton

I thought I would be able to id "relatively" easily but nothing quite fits.

Thanks
Mal

Entoloma - "relatively easy"? Ho hum .... only if it has cruciform spores

I've got something in a tub in my fridge looking rather like yours. It's bottom of the queue for id though. If I get round to it whilst it still has something of a fungus shape I'll let you know the outcome.

Also not finding any cheilocystidia doesn't mean it doesn't have any. I've just discovered that on one I looked at a few days ago. Couldn't find any on the first lot that appeared. Second lot I found a few, so my first id was wrong. So instead of being a rare Entoloma it turns out to be a common one

And where's Rob? Silence since he gave up in disgust after getting nowhere with two Entolomas I told him to spend a few more hours looking for the elusive cheilocystidia. Maybe he's still looking.

Melanie

[RobSutton]

Originally Posted by SheffieldLass

Entoloma - "relatively easy"? Ho hum .... only if it has cruciform spores

.....

And where's Rob? Silence since he gave up in disgust after getting nowhere with two Entolomas I told him to spend a few more hours looking for the elusive cheilocystidia. Maybe he's still looking.

Melanie

I can think of nothing finer to be doing than staring down a microscope looking for cheilocystidia (or even worse clamps!) but sadly work has been getting in the way of enjoying myself. I've got a few days off coming up and I have noticed a sudden flush of Entoloma in the various places I've been to with groups over the last couple of weeks and lots of things coming up on odd bits off dung too so it could be a busy weekend.

[flaxton]

Originally Posted by SheffieldLass

Entoloma - "relatively easy"? Ho hum .... only if it has cruciform spores



Melanie

I thought, rather naively that the omphaloid shape would limit it

Mal

[SheffieldLass]

Originally Posted by flaxton

I thought, rather naively that the omphaloid shape would limit it

Mal

It is a start, and it isn't blue anywhere so you can rule out some sections but it still leaves plenty .... As Rob says, you need cheilocystidia presence/absence, clamps present/absence, decisions on whether the cap and stipes are glabrous or fibrous which sometimes isn't so easy either. (Though yours aren't glabrous). Spore shape and size.

I think, if you are using FAN1, that you'd find it somewhere in Key 6. There are only 4 to search through the details of. Entoloma undatum maybe?
Entoloma undatum

Melanie

P.S. This is from the Basidio checklist: "Habitat: On soil or decayed wood (small moss covered stumps) in open, herb-rich deciduous woodland. Rarely (and dubiously) reported from grassland" Somewhat different from Noordeloos in FAN who says "terrestrial in groups in grassland on poor sandy soil." Or in FN "In groups in open spots, grassy or mossy places, also on naked soil, in or near deciduous forests, also on ± sandy soils under Juniperus and in Pinus plantations; summer to autumn; common in temp.-bore

[mollisia]

Hello,

Entoloma undatum is a species with deeply omphaloid, greybrown cap which usually is zonate. And usually the stipe is shorter then the cap diam.

If your fungus really is an Entoloma, you should be coming somewhere in the near of E. rusticoides.
But I somewhat doubt, that this is an Entoloma, as the spores don't look entolomatoid. They are too long, elliptical and too smooth-angled. They look like Rhodocybe spores from your picture. May be you can measure some, they should be smaller then Entoloma spores.
It seems as if there are no clamps, what would be a must for Rhodocybe, but which also can lead to Entoloma.
You say that the pigmentis encrusting, but I can not see that on the foto. Those "things" on the one hyphae are not incrusting pigments in my opinion.

best regards,
Andreas

[flaxton]

I have found undatum before and it was a much greyer colour and did have the zonate cap. E rusticoides is one I considered but one of the reasons it was rejected was I measured the spores at up to 13um (mostly 9-10.5) and the encrusted hyphae.
It is in the post to Kew so I will let you know.

Mal

[flaxton]

Also indentified by Kew as Entoloma nigellum.

Mal

[SheffieldLass]

Originally Posted by flaxton

Also indentified by Kew as Entoloma nigellum.

Mal

Have you got sand dunes in your back garden? Grandkids got a bit creative with the sand pit? I guess the sand which your paving slabs were laid on could have come from some ...

Interesting that it is growing in a completely different habitat to the one it is supposed to be found in. And no wonder we could not get it, it's not in FAN 1, and yours really doesn't look like this description at all, from Funga Nordica (especially the bit I've put in bold)

Pileipellis a cutis of 5-15 μm wide hyphae with incrusted walls, in addition some intracellular pigment present; clamps absent. Cap 5-20 mm, convex to plane, subumbilicate, glabrous, hygrophanous, translucently striate, very dark brown to blackish brown; gills decurrent, thick, distant, dark grey brown with pink tinge; stem 10-20 x 1-2.5 mm, very dark brown to blackish brown; smell and taste farinaceous. Sp 9-12 x 7-9 μm, heterodiametrical, 5-8-angled in side-view; cheilocystidia absent. In groups in coastal sand dunes among scanty vegetation, often with Salix repens; also found on very rotten wood; summer to autumn; very rare in temp.-hemib.; DK (DD, no recent finds), NO (NE, Busk: Hurum).
E. nigellum (Quél.) Noorde

Melanie

[Chris Yeates]

this is from P.D. Orton's entry in the "New Check List" in TBMS 43: p. 227:

ECCILIA NIGELLA Quél. C.R. Ass. franc. Av. Sci. 1883, 2, Pl. 6/6
(Figs. 209-210, 266)
In the sand-dune area of Dawlish Warren, Devon, T. J. Wallace collected a small dark brown agaric which resembled a small species of Omphalina, such as 0. rustica s. J. Lange, very closely macroscopically but had angular spores, pink in the mass and elliptic-oblong in outline (Fig. 266), thus ruling out the possibility of its being E. rusticoides, which is generally accepted as having isodiametric spores subcircular in outline 7.5-10/6.5-57.5µ (Fig. 267). The spores were also larger than those of E. parkensis, as currently described, and in any case the latter differs macroscopically from the Dawlish Warren agaric in some details. Whilst looking at some of Quélet's figures for another purpose I saw that he had described from sand-dunes on the island of Oleron E. nigella, a small species looking much like the Dawlish Warren agaric, and having spores 'ovoide anguleuse, 10µ' . The Dawlish agaric agreed reasonably well with the original description and I have therefore included E. nigella Quél , in the 'List' .
The following is a brief description of the British material taken mainly
from notes of T. J. Wallace:

Cap 7-18 mm. , convex then expanded-convex, centre not or slightly dexepressed, dark brown with conspicuous striae when moist, smooth but innately radially silky-fibrillose under lens, margin often crenate or uneven. Gills concolorous then with slight pink tinge, decurrent, triangular, distant, L 9-14 1 0-2, thick, occasionally forked, edge even. Stem 10-20/1-2 mm. , equal or attenuated downwards, + concolorous, smooth (one specimen had compressed grooved stem), base not seen, white tomentose. Flesh thin, concolorous. Spores angular ellipsoid-oblong, 10-12/7-8µ (Fig. 266). Gill edge fertile. Basidia 4-spored. Hyphae of capsurface ± cylindrical, 8-30µ diam., pigment encrusting, sometimes 'zebrée' . No clamps seen.

In moss and lichen, Dawlish Warren, Devon, 12 Dec. 1956, legit T. J. Wallace.

yet another new species for Yorkshire - I assume Kew will be keeping voucher material . . . .

Chris