Pleated Inkcap?

I lied when I said I only found those miniscule orange blobs yesterday. In the fields up on top of Tottington Mount I also saw a smattering of what I'm calling Yellow Fieldcaps (Bolbitius titubans) and this solitary little character. Unfortunately we were both being so lashed by wind and rain, this photo was the best I could get.

The first thing I noticed, having learnt the word two days previously, was that it's seriously sulcate. The fine straight gills radiate out from the nub in the centre, separated by a tissue-paper thin cap, like some kind of miniature mousy cocktail umbrella.

This grooved appearance reminded me of the Coprinellus mushrooms I saw the other day, so I turned first to that section of my Collins' Complete Guide.

Two species looked, from the photographs, to be very similar to what I was looking at: The Pleated Inkcap (Parasola plicatilis) and P. auricoma, with the former seeming more likely as its usual habitat is lawns and short grass.

Roger Phillips' Mushrooms notes that "more common but similar is Coprinus leiocephalus", but doesn't appear to include a description of C. leiocephalus in the book; Michael Jordan's Fungi says that C. leiocephalus is found "on damp soil amongst litter in woods generally," so it seems unlikely to be that.

Given where I found it, Pleated Inkcap (Parasola plicatilis) seems the most likely identification.


For the record
Date: 29/12/15
Location: Tottington Mount
Grid reference: TQ219108