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Mycena latifolia (Peck) A. H. Sm.

Mycologia 27: 599 (1935).

Mycena latifolia

© A. Aronsen
VESTFOLD, Tjøme, Moutmarka 25 Sept. 2010


Gregarious in moss or grass in open grassland or on or among fallen needles of various coniferous trees. Autumn. Occurs in many European countries but apparently not common. Listed as NT in the red list of threatened species in Norway (2021).

Pileus 5-25 mm across, conical, parabolical to convex, often flattened to somewhat depressed in the centre, or sometimes with a shallow umbo, sulcate, translucent-striate, pruinose but soon glabrous, hygrophanous, blackish brown to dark brown with whitish margin, sometimes with age paler to darker brown and greyish brown towards the margin. Lamellae 14-23 reaching the stipe, ascending to somewhat arcuate, adnate to broadly adnate, more or less decurrent with a short tooth, dorsally intervenose with age, whitish grey to dark grey with whitish edge. Stipe 20-70 x 0.5-1.5 mm, hollow, elastic-firm, straight to somewhat curved, equal, terete, pruinose above, glabrous for the greater part, somewhat lubricous when wet, bluish black to blackish grey apex when young, greyish to pale grey-brown below, with age more or less greyish or brownish grey, mostly with pale grey to whitish apex, the base densely covered with long, flexuous, white fibrils. Odour none or somewhat farinaceous. Taste mild, indistinctive.

Basidia 29-39 x 6-7 µm, slender-clavate, 4-spored, with sterigmata 4-5 µm long. Spores 7.2-10 x 4-5.5 µm, Q 1.7-2.5, Qav~2, pip-shaped to subcylindrical, smooth, amyloid. Cheilocystidia 40-85 x 6-24 µm, occuring mixed with basidia, fusiform, lageniform or clavate, long- to short-stalked, thin-walled or with slightly thickened cell walls in the widest parts, smooth or covered in the widest part with few to fairly numerous, straight to curved, fairly short excrescences 1.5-3.5 x 1-2 µm. Pleurocystidia numerous, similar to the fusiform or lageniform cheilocystidia, up to 100 µm long, smooth or covered with excrescences in the wider part. Hyphae of the pileipellis 2.5-3.5 µm wide, covered with simple to densely branched excrescences 1-27 x 1-2 µm, somewhat gelatinized. Hyphae of the cortical layer of the stipe 1.5-4.5 µm wide, smooth to diverticulate. Clamp connections present in all tissues.

Mycena latifolia is not easily identified in the field. In the microscope, however, it shows the very typical cystidia , with excrescences in the widest part. In Norway there is no other species with such cystidia. In sect. Intermediae Kühner ex Maas Geest. it shares room with M. font-queri Maire and M. silvae-pristinae Veerkamp & Kuyper, and M. haushoferi Robich, Miersch & Karasch, together with the American species M. borealis A.H. Sm.

The other species in the section differ from M. latifolia in having smooth to very sparsely diverticulate hyphae of the pileipellis. According to Robich (2003: 429) M. font-queri has a much larger number of lamellae reaching the stipe, much larger spores, and the cheilocystidia clavate with small warts. M. haushoferi differs from M. latifolia by having smooth to very sparsely diverticulate hyphae of the pileipellis and of the cortical layer of the stipe, the stipe cortex also with some long, hairy elements, and by possessing caulocystidia. M. silvae-pristinae and M. borealis have cheilo- and pleurocystidia apically covered with excrescences.

Microphotos of cheilocystidia

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© Arne Aronsen 2002-2023