Wood Blewit?

[steve_hn]

I went for a walk today in my local wood and fields and found a great array of fungi. In particular clouded agarics were out in force in huge rings which were particularly impressive.
Below is an image of what I believe may be a Wood Blewit/ Clitocybe nuda ? I have never seen one of these before, and it was very beautiful with a deep purple colour. Could someone please confirm if this is right?

coul


Could someone also help me out with the following fungi? It has a nice peachy colour, and a sweet smell, found again in mixed woodland, growing amongst the dead leaf matter.

[Chris Yeates]

hi

yes to Lepista nuda and the second fungus looks very like Lepista flaccida (Ken is good at these and related fungi . . . )

cheers

Chris

[Iona F]

Second one could be C Gibba... we found a load yeasterday in mixed woodland with blewits.

[Ken Burgess]

Originally Posted by steve_hn

Could someone also help me out with the following fungi? It has a nice peachy colour, and a sweet smell, found again in mixed woodland, growing amongst the dead leaf matter.

This is Lepista flaccida. The differences in the colour between this and Clitocybe gibba (now Influndibulocybe gibba) can seem quite subtle unless you have them in your hand together, when they look quite different. The middle photo probably doesn't represent the true colour, being somewhat washed out and, without taking account of other characters, could suggest C. gibba.

But the easiest way to tell them apart is by the texture of the cap cuticle, which is usually slightly subtomentose (almost felty) in C. gibba whereas it is completely smooth in Lepista inversa. This reflects slightly different cuticles structures. In photos, the cap surface of C. gibba will appear matt, while C. inversa usually looks slightly greasy or shiny. This character is particularly noticeable in the photo on the right.

Ken

[fairplay]

Did you 'fLunk' that one Ken by accidentally adding an 'l' into "Infundibulocybe" ?

Neil.

[Ken Burgess]

Originally Posted by fairplay

Did you 'fLunk' that one Ken by accidentally adding an 'l' into "Infundibulocybe" ?

Neil.

Yup. But that's what comes of rushing to make a post before taking the dog to the vets for an operation.

Ken

[Iona F]

Originally Posted by Ken Burgess

This is Lepista flaccida. The differences in the colour between this and Clitocybe gibba (now Influndibulocybe gibba) can seem quite subtle unless you have them in your hand together, when they look quite different. The middle photo probably doesn't represent the true colour, being somewhat washed out and, without taking account of other characters, could suggest C. gibba.

But the easiest way to tell them apart is by the texture of the cap cuticle, which is usually slightly subtomentose (almost felty) in C. gibba whereas it is completely smooth in Lepista inversa. This reflects slightly different cuticles structures. In photos, the cap surface of C. gibba will appear matt, while C. inversa usually looks slightly greasy or shiny. This character is particularly noticeable in the photo on the right.

Ken

Brilliant. Really good to have the points laid out so succinctly... Does just remind me how much harder it is to indentify things that aren't in your hand! I'm not sure the day will come when I'm happy to swap 'that could be' for 'that is' when looking just at photos of fungi... Also reminds me how subtle some of the differences are, I thought the first picture looked slightly paler & felty at the very margin, and didn't think they looked shiney!

Thanks for the post...

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by Iona F

Brilliant. Really good to have the points laid out so succinctly... Does just remind me how much harder it is to indentify things that aren't in your hand! I'm not sure the day will come when I'm happy to swap 'that could be' for 'that is' when looking just at photos of fungi... Also reminds me how subtle some of the differences are, I thought the first picture looked slightly paler & felty at the very margin, and didn't think they looked shiney!

Thanks for the post...

this touches on an important point - something which is quite obvious from looking at the posts on this forum for a while is that they tend to fall into two groups - the people who want to name the fungi they find and the people who like to photograph fungi and would like a name to attach to those photographs; these are not quite the same thing and although I fall into the former group I have no problem at all with those in the other group who have fallen under the aesthetic spell of these fantastic organisms

there are some stunning photo's - particularly in the Gallery - and all power to those who put in a lot of time and effort and rolling about on the ground etc to get those shots

however . . . if you are wanting to understand the fungal 'flora' of a particular wood, or a particular area and you find something unfamiliar you should bring a representative sample home with you; it doesn't mean you won't be taking (more) photographs of course, but those can be of the different views you might need for an ID, plus the spore print, the careful examination under a lens of all the features, textures, colour changes on drying etc. (I'm not going to mention the 'M' word as that isn't always necessary); your photo's may not be works of art, but they may be more helpful and you really will understand fungi better; a follow up from this is that I would never lumber myself by taking books into the field with me - maybe when you are starting out it can be helpful, but once you have a decent knowledge of the common species, it's easier to attempt to name things at home and - importantly - you can have a good look at the fungus before you start looking at pictures in books, which can result in trying to force what you have found into one of the species in your book(even though in your heart of hearts you know it doesn't quite fit); and I fear that trawling the web when you have no real idea of what you are looking for is akin to playing darts blindfold a lot of the time . . .

digital cameras have been such a boon - but they carry a hidden downside: I can remember when we used to make sketches, colour notes using watercolours or coloured pencils of our unfamiliar finds; pointing a camera at the fungus will almost certainly produce a better image than my clumsy artwork did - but I looked at the fungus a heck of a lot harder and for longer . . . . that is the way you really learn; am I making any sort of sense?

perhaps I should add a third sort of poster (thankfully a rare phenomenon) - they point a camera / phone or whatever, produce an image of varying quality, post it on here with a title like "Tell me what this is?" never say thank you to the people who have taken time to respond and often never appear again . . .

over and out

Chris

[steve_hn]

Thank you everyone for your replys. These were most helpful