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Mycena amicta (Fr.) Quél.

Mém. Soc. Emul. Montbél. II 5: 243 (1872).

 


On decayed wood and woody debris, mostly of conifers but also deciduous trees. Late summer to late autumn. In Norway widely distributed in Southern parts of the country. See Bendiksen & Halvorsen, 1984.

Pileus 5-15 mm across, conical to campanulate, sulcate, translucent-striate, finely puberulous, covered with a separable gelatinous pellicle, pale grey-brown or pale sepia brown, sometimes with an olivaceous, greenish or bluish green shade, margin at first somewhat involute, later straight, often bluish green, or more rarely dingy citrine to ochraceous yellow. Odour indistinctive. Lamellae 17-25 reaching the stipe, ascending, narrowly adnate, greyish to greyish brown, with the edge pallid to whitish, at times reported to be yellowish, greenish or bluish. Stipe 40-70 x 0.5-2 mm, terete, hollow, straight, entirely covered with a dense and fairly coarse white pubescence, greyish brown, usually somewhat paler at the apex, occasionally with a slight lilaceous or violaceous tint, the base at times somewhat rooting, concolorous or with some blue-green stains or entirely blue.

Basidia 30-40 x 6-7 µm, clavate , 4-spored. Spores 7.5-10.7 x 4.5-6 µm, Qav ~ 1.4, pip-shaped, smooth, amyloid. Cheilocystidia 16-45 x 3.5-7 µm, clavate, subfusiform or more often cylindrical. Pleurocystidia absent. Lamellar trama dextrinoid. Hyphae of the pileipellis 2-4.5 µm wide, branched, anastomosing, smooth with scattered cylindrical excrescences, embedded in a layer of gelatinous matter. Hyphae of the cortical layer of the stipe 2-3.5 µm wide, smooth. Caulocystidia 50-145 x 8-11.5 µm, fusiform to subcylindrical. Clamp connections present in all tissues.

Mycena amicta is usually easy to identify. The pubescent to puberulous stipe is a reliable character, and so is the shape of the cheilocystidia. The gelatinous and separable pellicle at the pileus should be noticed.

It belongs to sect. Amictae A. H. Sm. ex Maas Geest. together with M. subcaerulea (Peck) Sacc. The latter, which is an American species, can easily be separated on account of the globose to subglobose spores, 6-8 µm broad. M. cyanorrhiza Quél. has a strikingly blue base of the stipe. M. amicta usually is a larger species than M. cyanorrhiza, with darker colours, and with a conspicuously white-pubescent stipe. The base of the stipe usually is somewhat blue-green, but sometimes it can be entirely blue.

There are, however, several other features separating the two species. In M. cyanorrhiza the lamellar edge is formed by a tough thread, 9-12 lamellae are reaching the stipe, the spores are narrower, and the cheilocystidia are clavate to obpyriform, with few, simple to branched excrescences.


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© Arne Aronsen 2002-2023