OK here you go . . . . this is Harri Harmaja's definition of the genus (published as long ago as
2003:
from:
Ann. Bot. Fennici 40: 213-218:
Agaricales; habitus of basidiocarp as in Clitocybe. Veil completely absent; development of the fruit body apparently gymnocarpic. Pileus mostly not hygrophanous, white or some shade of brown, slightly depressed to deeply infundibuliform when adult; margin inrolled at first; surface dry, smooth or somewhat scaly or slightly areolate. Stipe concolorous with pileus or paler to white, mostly equal; surface dry, smooth. Lamellae decurrent, whitish, yellowish or brownish.
Flesh mostly not hygrophanous. Odour when fresh indistinct, or faintly camphor-like or somewhat like that of oil of bitter almonds (benzaldehyde; this odour may result from the production of cyanic acid, HCN). Taste mild. Basidia without carminophilic/siderophilic granules (Harmaja 1976b: one species studied; reported here: type species studied); wall cyanophobic (Harmaja 1976b: one species studied; reported here: type species studied) and carminophobic (Harmaja 1976b: one species studied; reported here: type species studied). Spores very pale yellow (pure white in some species?) in fresh deposit detached ones, in microscopic mounts made of dry gills, neither sticking together to form tetrads nor with conspicuously collapsed walls; all or a proportion of the spores with confluent base (Harmaja 1969b: fig. 2c, 1974a: fig. la); all or most of the spores lacrymoid in shape being broadest above their middle (Harmaja 1969b fig. 2b and c); uninucleate (Harmaja 1976b: one species studied; reported here: type species studied). Spore wall perfectly smooth (also under the electron microscope, type species studied Pegler & Young 1971), without germ-pore hyaline, inamyloid, cyanophobic (Singer 1972 two species, Harmaja 1974a: p. 84: type and 6 other species, and Harmaja 1976b: one species studied), and carminophobic (Harmaja 1976b one species studied; reported here: type species studied); hilar appendix/apicular region large, ca 0.7-1.3 µm in diameter, with a nodulose hilum (type species studied: Pegler & Young 1971)
Spore contents cyanophilic, homogeneous or with small, mostly indistinct oil drops. Cystidia of any kind absent. Pileus cortex weakly differentiated, being a cutis of narrow, parallel to interwoven hyphae; pigmentation inconspicuous, pigment mostly intracellular. Hymenophoral trama regular or subregular, i.e., composed of parallel to somewhat interwoven hyphae. Clamp connections abundant everywhere in the basidiocarp
Dried pileus, stipe, lamellae, basal mycelium flesh, and spore deposit of the type species (from a herbarium specimen dried several years ago do not display fluorescence but retain their colours under ultraviolet light (with wave lengths 254 nm and 366 nm) (reported here; see also Harmaja 1969b). Saprobes, occurring mainly in litter of leaves and needles, sometimes in remnants of herbaceous plants or on seemingly bare mineral soil. Association of the mycelium with photosynthetic green plants (algae, mosses or mycorrhiza-forming vascular plants) seemingly lacking. The organism (mycelium) is incapable of reducing nitrate (the type and another species examined: Bresinsky & Schneider 1975).
geotropa is the only one of Harmaja's
Infundibulicybe species generally accepted as belonging in that new genus
all the others are still retained in
Clitocybe -
catinus,
glareosa etc.
but who cares? let's be honest -
Clitocybe is a nasty boring genus anyway
Chris
Linear Mode
