Stinky Flat Head

[SheffieldLass]

This was in birch/pine/spruce woodland in a heathy clearing. It looks rather like Collybia butyracea, but it stinks ... smells as if it had just stepped in something. And yes, I did check to make sure it or I hadn't ... There were two and both had this strong smell. As it has dried it has turned from a sewage sort of smell to pungent bed bug/rancid mealy. (By comparison Phallus impudicus smell is a bit more pleasantly aromatic ... )



There are 3 smelly ones under Gymnopus: G brassicolens, G impudicus, G hariolorum. The last one isn't authentically British. I didn't find any under the other groups that Collybia have been split into (though maybe I missed a group). So I'd be interested to see what you think. This doesn't have the reddish colour or general shape of the first two, so I'm not convinced it is either of those, though the habitat for G impudicus is spot on.

spores 4 spored basidium

Spores are hyaline, and typical Collybia shape. Size, roughly 6.5-8.4 x 4-5um.
They were rather difficult to measure as their oily contents are mainly what you can see. The fungus itself was difficult under the microscope, and I tried it in a few different stains to see if I could get a clearer picture. I did find something that was very probably a cheilocystidium, but I thought it was just a rather distorted basidium and foolishly did not keep the picture.

I did do a bit of googling for images and the European common names translate as Stinky Flat Head ...

All thoughts/ideas very welcome.

Melanie

[ashgale]

Hi Melanie,
bit of a long shot here,
but could it be Tephrocybe rancida (Collybia rancida) ?
which looks very similar and has a strong rancid smell,

ashgale.

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by ashgale

Hi Melanie,
bit of a long shot here,
but could it be Tephrocybe rancida (Collybia rancida) ?
which looks very similar and has a strong rancid smell,

ashgale.

T. rancida (or Lyophyllum rancidum, as Funga Nordica calls it) of course has a deep rooting stem, that would settle it . . .

agarics like this makes me realise why I'm still spending a lot of time working on (and mostly naming!) asco's and hypho's from the Scarborough Bioblitz last week

on the subject of Gymnopus, on the recent BMS spring foray I had a little taxonomic lesson from Alick Henrici - I asked him what the key points distinguishing Gymnopus dryophilus from G. aquosus were; his answer spoke volumes - it was "Gymnopus aquosus is what you think you've collected - Gymnopus dryophilus is what you have collected"

lol

Chris

[SheffieldLass]

Thanks Ashgale.

I'm pretty sure it didn't have a deep rooting stem. However Tephrocybe/Lyophyllum looks promising ....

I think I'm going to have to wait until another appears though and have another crack at it. And hopefully get one a bit more microscope friendly ....

Melanie