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. |
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Microphotos of cheilocystidia
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