Solitary or gregarious on fern rhizomes
in hot-houses. In nature this species, originally described
from The Bermudas, grows on various kinds of vegetable debris,
but in Europe it is almost exclusively associated to hot-houses.
It has been reported from North America, South America,
Europe, Africa, Sri Lanka, Japa, Caribbean, and Hawaiian
Islands (Desjardin 1995). It may occasionally occur in
nature in Europe too (Moser 1977).
Pileus up to 10
mm across, at first narrowly ellipsoid with incurved margin,
then campanulate, finally with flaring margin, deeply sulcate,
translucent-striate, densely white-furfuraceous or powdery-floccose,
somewhat glabrescent toward the margin with age, greyish
beneath the furfuraceous covering, gradually turning white
except at the centre. Flesh very thin. Odour
not noted. Lamellae circa 18 reaching
the stipe, tender, ascending, free to narrowly adnate, narrow
to slightly ventricose, about 0.5 mm broad, thin, smooth,
apparently white when fresh, with finely fimbriate, concolorous
edge. Stipe up to 35 mm long,
0.2-0.6 mm wide, at times somewhat broadened at the base,
without disc, densely white-puberulous to almost wooly-hisute,
white.
Basidia 4-spored,
clamped. Spores 8.1-9.7 x 4.5-5.5
µm, pip-shaped, weakly amyloid. Cheilocystidia
23-31 x 8-14.5 µm, clavate to fusiform,rather sparsely
covered with cylindrical excrescences up to 3 µm long.
Hyphae of the pileipellis verrucose,
the terminal cells globose to pyriform verrucose to spinulose.
Caulocystidia up to 300 x 6.5
µm, cylindrical, septate at the base, verrucose to
spinulose.
The macroscopic description above is based
entirely from Maas Geesteranus (1983). The microscopic details
have also been taken from the same source but somewhat shortened.
In Europe M. alphitophora can be
found on fern rhizomes in orchid greenhouses. It is a typical
member of sect. Sacchariferae
because of the small size, the granular or floccose pileus,
the amyloid spores, and the large, spinulose caulocystidia. It
is characterized by the following features (Desjardin 1995:
51):
- a small (1-10 mm diam), sulcate, greyish pileus with
white granules that becomes white overall in age
- close, ascendent, subfree, narrow, white lamellae
- a white, puberulous to hisute stipe up to 50 x 0.5
mm that is sometimes broadened or subbulbous at the
base but lacks a basal disc
- ellipsoid basidiospores in the range 7.5-10 x 4.5-5.5
µm
- 4-spored, clamped basidia
- sparsely spinulose, clamped cheilocystidia
- no cherocytes
- densely spinulose caulocystidia up to 300 x 3.5-13
µm with the apical spinulae often longer than
the other spinulae
- broadly clavate cystidia at the junction of the stipe
with the substrate
Mycena adscendens
(Lasch) Maas Geest. differs in having a small basal disc, cheilocystidia
wiith a slender neck, and smooth caulocystidia. Mycena
corynephora Maas Geest. has subglobose to globose spores
and mainly clavate caulocystidia.
In Norway M. alphitophora has been
reported by Bendiksen & Metsänheimo (1987).
Further images on the web:
D.
E. Desjardin
http://home.hetnet.nl/~mien.wijtenburg/Gallery/Mycena_osmundicola.htm
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/mushroom/tokyo/Mycena/sirokonakaburi/sirokonakaburi.htm |
