fungus growing on grass bank for id please

[the naturelover]

good evening all. can anyone help id this fungus please. growing on a grass bank with gorse shrubs and lots of different hygrocybe's.
very fragile it fell apart on trying to pick it. cap 5mm wide 10mm tall. whole thing 40mm tall. many regards tn.

[Chris Yeates]

hi

it's clearly what would until recently have been called a Coprinus; I think it would now be treated as a Coprinopsis; that marginate bulb is interesting, but I think microscopy would be the only way you would get a name to species level

pity - looks interesting, but unless you collected it and quickly dried it, I fear that's as far as one can go

cheers

Chris

[the naturelover]

thanks chris. awkward blighters these tiny things!! it caught my eye as well. wont help i know but heres another picture of the base. rather odd!!

regards tn.

[lipase]

Originally Posted by Chris Yeates

hi

it's clearly what would until recently have been called a Coprinus; I think it would now be treated as a Coprinopsis; that marginate bulb is interesting, but I think microscopy would be the only way you would get a name to species level

pity - looks interesting, but unless you collected it and quickly dried it, I fear that's as far as one can go

cheers

Chris

Hi Chris,

What are the possibilities for this species? From looking at the photos I would have immediately said C. micaceus after checking for a rust-coloured mat of mycelium.

Cheers,

Jack

[fairplay]

Hi Jack,

I don't quite follow you here, are you saying that if you had seen a brown mat of mycelium you would have said it was Coprinellus micaceus or are you saying you can see in the photo a brown mat ...... ?

Coprinellus domesticus sometimes grows from a brown mycelial mat, but not always, and the 'mat' would be on wood, not in grass.
I believe there are maybe 2 other 'Ink Caps' that also can appear from mats of mycelium, but I'm not sure if C.micaceus does occasionally.

Neil.

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by lipase

Hi Chris,

What are the possibilities for this species? From looking at the photos I would have immediately said C. micaceus after checking for a rust-coloured mat of mycelium.

Cheers,

Jack

hi Jack

this is nothing like micaceus tbf, not on wood, cap wrong colour, veil fleecy rather than micaceous; and as Neil has pointed out an Ozonium mat is not restricted to domesticus - ellisii (if you accept that as a good species), bipellis, xanthothrix, radians and others may also have it

also "immediately saying" an ink-cap is such and such a species is a dangerous pastime - I have seen specimens confidently identified in the field as C. atramentarius which - when the spores were checked - turned out to be acuminatus

cheers

Chris

[lipase]

Originally Posted by fairplay

Hi Jack,

I don't quite follow you here, are you saying that if you had seen a brown mat of mycelium you would have said it was Coprinellus micaceus or are you saying you can see in the photo a brown mat ...... ?

Coprinellus domesticus sometimes grows from a brown mycelial mat, but not always, and the 'mat' would be on wood, not in grass.
I believe there are maybe 2 other 'Ink Caps' that also can appear from mats of mycelium, but I'm not sure if C.micaceus does occasionally.

Neil.

Hi Neil,

Sorry, I phrased my comment incorrectly; I should have said 'I'd check for a rust-coloured mat and if the mat wasn't present then I'd say C. micaceus' hence why I initially thought this was C. micaceus because of the lack of a rust coloured mat. But as you say; it doesn't appear to be growing on wood (which I forgot C. micaceus always does! Rooky error there) and as Chris has just said (but I wouldn't have known this) 'cap wrong colour, veil fleecy rather than micaceous'.

So since this isn't C. micaceus (because of wrong cap colour, wrong substrate and 'fleeciness') what possible species could it be? I've flicked through my guides and can't find anything that looks similar.

Thanks,

Jack

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by lipase

So since this isn't C. micaceus (because of wrong cap colour, wrong substrate and 'fleeciness') what possible species could it be? I've flicked through my guides and can't find anything that looks similar.

Thanks,

Jack

exactly, Jack

how many of the 115 or so species of Coprinus in the old sense currently on the British list do your guides include? (seriously, I'd be interested)

there are very few of these fungi that you can do in the field - let alone from a photograph, sorry; you have to do the microscopy, studying spore and veil characters amongst others (and you witnessed what a task that can be recently, didn't you?)

Chris

[lipase]

Chris,

Ok wow; that's a lot of Inkcaps that exist in Britain, the 'Collins Complete Guide to British Mushrooms and Toadstools' lists 15 species that originally were Coprinus. So that's only 13% of the total number of species on the GB checklist list. The online Roger phillips guide lists 18 species. I suppose this is where something like Fungi of Switzerland becomes useful.

Yes, that apparently hybrid Peziza that was found on the foray was eye opening to the difficulty of identifying fungi even with a microscope.

Daaaaaaaaaaaaamn, identifying fungi is not easy! (Just stating the obvious there ).

Jack

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by lipase

Chris,

Ok wow; that's a lot of Inkcaps that exist in Britain, the 'Collins Complete Guide to British Mushrooms and Toadstools' lists 15 species that originally were Coprinus. So that's only 13% of the total number of species on the GB checklist list. The online Roger phillips guide lists 18 species. I suppose this is where something like Fungi of Switzerland becomes useful.

Yes, that apparently hybrid Peziza that was found on the foray was eye opening to the difficulty of identifying fungi even with a microscope.

Daaaaaaaaaaaaamn, identifying fungi is not easy! (Just stating the obvious there ).

Jack

kinda casts a new light on the 'Collins Complete Guide to British Mushrooms and Toadstools' as well

cheers

Chris

PS even FOS has a little over a third . . . . . best online resource is http://www.grzyby.pl/coprinus-site-K...s/Coprinus.htm though the taxonomy above species level is now out of date; but note how quickly it starts to refer to microscopical characters in the key