A closer look

I snapped a photo of this mushroom in situ during a lunchtime stroll round Woods Mill on Monday. Tufts of it were growing on a decaying willow branch and from above it looked a striking orange-y colour. So, without much ado, I called it Sulphur Tuft Hypholoma fasciculare.

WRONG!

Luckily an eagle-eyed reader was on hand to alert me to my mistake. So I've been back for a closer look.

The first thing I'd have noticed, if I'd bothered to get down and have a proper look at it in the first place, is its brown velvety stem (or "stipe"), fading to a pale apricot colour at the top ("the apex"). The stipe seems pretty tough and fibrous.

Looking at it from below, you can see the gills are an attractive pale apricot colour.

...and from the guide below, I would say the form of the gills is "adnexed" (or possibly "adnate"?). They don't look as crowded as I've seen on Sulphur Tuft.

From the Collins Complete Guide to British Mushrooms and Toadstools (a photographic guide)

I had a tip-off that this might be Velvet Shank Flammulina velutipes which the Collins Complete Guide describes as a "Winter-fruiting shank [check!] distinguished from similar-looking species by its dark velvety stipe [check!] and white spore print.

So, time will tell whether this guy passes the final test...

Come back later to find out if this mushroom's dropped a white spore print and been officially determined as Velvet Shank Flammulina velutipes.

*CLIFFHANGER ENDING*


Postscript


I couldn't find any spores.


Post-postscript

UPDATE 16/02/16 - happened to be passing these mushrooms again yesterday and they were looking pretty fresh, so thought I'd take another sample and try and settle this once and for all.

Look! WHITE SPORES! 

So we'll call this one Flammulina velutipes and be done with it.


For the record
Date: 07/02/16
Location: Woods Mill nature reserve
Grid reference: TQ217136 
Entered into FRDBI: 13/02/2017