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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