Sunday 27 December 2015

Glistening Inkcaps?


Went to see if I could re-find one of those Oysterlings from yesterday, to check the colour of their spores. Turns out finding a stick in a wood is harder than I'd anticipated.

On the plus side, I found some more, BIGGER, fungi.


I was tempted to call these Glistening Inkcaps (Coprinus micaceus), based on the photograph and description in Mushrooms. But Fungi includes a very similar species, C. truncorum, which apparently "differs in spore characteristics and in the downy young stem."

Having learnt my lesson from yesterday, I did bring a specimen home: It doesn't look particularly downy. But then it doesn't look particularly young either.

In conclusion: it's probably either Coprinus micaceus or C. truncorum, with C. micaceus being the most common. Except I don't think they're even called that any more. I tried Googling them to find out if there's a way to separate these two species without a microscope and discovered another name for this genus is Coprinellus. Looks like Coprinellus is is the preferred name, according to the British Mycological Society GB Checklist of Fungal Names

So, either Coprinellus micaceus or C. truncorum then.

For the record
Date: 27/12/15
Location: Horton Wood, Small Dole
Grid reference: TQ208127 (site centroid)

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