Growing among grass and moss in open grassland. Autumn. Rare.

Maas Geesteranus (1992: 358) considered this taxon as a variety of M. epipterygia. Arnolds (1982) recognized it as a species of its own. This opinion is followed by Sivertsen, Jordal & Gaarder (1994). I have not seen this taxon in nature but consider it as a variety. Two recent ITS sequences obtained in the Norwegian Barcode Project (NorBOL) fit well into the Mycena epipterygia clade.

Since this variety is entirely devoid of yellow colours, it can be confused with the rare species M. agrestis Aronsen & Maas Geest., a member of Sect. Fuliginellae. The lamellae of M. agrestis, however, are arcuate, while they are ascending and adnate in var. pelliculosa. They can be separated also on account of microscopic features. In M. epipterygia the hyphae of the pileipellis are branched, anastomosing, covered with simple to furcate or branched excrescences, often forming dense masses, not smooth as in M. agrestis; the hyphae of the cortical layer of the stipe are smooth to sparsely covered with excrescences (smooth in M. agrestis); terminal cells abundant, coarsely diverticulate (presumably absent in M. agrestis).

Microphotos of cheilocystidia, hyphae of the pileipellis and terminal cells of the stipitipellis

Further images on the Internet:

Marjon van der Vegte