Came across these mushrooms sprouting up from a bank in Horton Wood on Sunday.
They were pretty fragile and many were broken and toppled over by the time I got to them.
I was intrigued to see they were very similar (the same?) as a mushroom I'd found the day before at Lodsworth (photos here). Interesting how environmental conditions will trigger particular species of fungi to suddenly appear.
I think these are a Psathyrella species.
They produced a reddish brown spore print.
I also had a look at the microcharacters...
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| Mature spores mounted in water at 400x magnification. |
The smooth, dark brown spores were all between 7-8 microns long x 4 - 4.5 microns wide.
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| Gill edge squash mounted in water at 400x magnification. |
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| Gill edge squash mounted in water at 400x magnification. |
I found lots of 'utriform' cheilocystidia on the gill edges. I looked for cystidia on the gill face (pleurocystidia) and couldn't find any.
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| An attempt at a gill trama squash mounted in water at 400x magnification. |
You can just about make out a basidium here. It looks like it's bearing two spores, but I think I saw at least one more when I was twiddling the focus knob.
There are loads of different Psathyrella species, but I'm hoping these characters together make this a fairly safe bet for Pale Brittlestem P. candolleana – a common and widespread species found in woodland and grassland.
For the record
Date: 3 June 2018
Location: Horton Wood, Small Dole
Grid reference: TQ208127 (site centroid)
Record entered into FRDBI 07/09/2018
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