Gregarious on moss-covered trunks of deciduous trees (Malus, Populus, Fraxinus). Known from France.
Pileus up to 6 mm across, hemispherical to campanulate, sulcate, translucent-striate, minutely granulose-puberulous, the granulosity covering the entire surface or being confined to the centre of the pileus, and showing up as pinkish brown to flesh-coloured on a white ground. Flesh very thin. Odour unknown. Lamellae 7-10 reaching the stipe, somewhat arcuate to horizontal, broadly adnate, somewhat decurrent in larger specimens, white with pinkish brown to flesh-coloured edge. Stipe 5-15 x 0.2-0.4 mm, equal, often curved, delicately pruinose, glabrescent, pale grey-brown to watery whitish, at times with a reddish shade at the insertion of the lamella, covered with fibrils at the base.
Basidia 24-26 x 8-10 µm, 4-spored. Spores (5.8-) 6.6-7.9(-8.4) × (5.6-)6.1-7.1(-7.5) µm, Q = 1-1.17(-1.2) ; N = 46, Me = 7.3 × 6.6 µm ; Qe = 1.1, globose, smooth, strongly amyloid. Cheilocystidia (11.5-)15.2-20.8(-21.2) × (8.9)9.5-12.4(-14.9 )µm, occuring mixed with basidia, clavate, with reddish contents, covered with not very numerous cylindrical excrescences up to approximately 3 µm long. Pleurocystidia absent. Lamellar trama dextrinoid. Hyphae of the pileipellis 4-13 µm wide, with reddish vacuolar pigment, densely covered with short cylindrical excrescences. Hyphae of the cortical layer of the stipe diverticulate.
The macroscopic description has been taken from Maas Geesteranus (1984), who adapted his description from those by Quélet (l.c) and Kühner (1938). The microscopic detalis are based on Maas Geesteranus (1984) complemented by measurements by Hervé Cochard of the spores and cheilocystidia in a recent French collection.
Because of its globose and amyloid spores, its brush-like cheilocystida and its corticolous habitat, Mycena venustula was classified in the Supinae section by Maas Geesteranus (1984). It can be distinguished from other species in this section by its finely reddish-bordered gills, which makes it "very easy to recognize under the microscope, by its very distinctly colored ridge hairs and its round spore" according to Kühner (1935). But the analysis of its ITS sequence places it in another section, sect. Polyadelphia, close to Mycena quercus-ilicis.
See http://herve.cochard.free.fr/Mycena/Mycena%20venustula.htm |
