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Hygrocybe miniata

by Michael Kuo, 22 October 2024

If you enjoy spending long hours trying to identify mushrooms, I highly recommend you pick some little orange or red waxy caps, bring them home, and try to figure out what they are. Hygrocybe miniata is not Latin for "many look-alikes," but it ought to be. The mushroom's defining features include its dry, rather than sticky, cap and stem, its gills (which are attached to the stem or begin to run slightly down it, but do not really run down it), and microscopic features.

Be sure to compare Hygrocybe miniata with Hygrocybe cantharellus and Hygrocybe squamulosa, both of which are very similar.

Hygrophorus miniatus is a synonym. Hygrocybe miniata mollis is a variety accepted by some mycologists to represent collections that are orange or orange-yellow throughout development.

Description:

Ecology: Precise ecological role uncertain (see Lodge and collaborators, 2013); in Europe appearing in grassy areas but in North America usually appearing in woods under hardwoods, especially oaks; usually growing gregariously; early summer through fall; originally described from Sweden and Denmark (Fries 1821); widespread in Europe and North America; also found in Central America and Oceania. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.

Cap: 5–40 mm across; convex, becoming broadly convex or nearly flat; often developing a broad central depression; dry or slightly moist in humid or wet weather; finely radially scurfy or fibrillose, especially with age; scarlet to reddish orange when young and fresh, fading to orange or yellow; the margin sometimes becoming thinly lined and/or scalloped.

Gills: Broadly attached to the stem or beginning to run down it; nearly distant; thick; pale yellow at first, becoming yellow to orange; short-gills frequent.

Stem: 20–60 mm long; 2–6 mm thick; equal, or tapering to base; dry; bald; yellow near the apex; elsewhere colored more or less like the cap but fading more slowly; base white.

Flesh: Orange to pale yellow; thin.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Chemical Reactions: KOH negative on cap surface.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 5–9 x 3–4.5 µm; ellipsoid or somewhat constricted and subpyriform; smooth; hyaline in KOH; inamyloid. Basidia 35–45 µm; long; 4-sterigmate. True hymenial cystidia absent, but filamentous pseudocystidia sometimes present on lamellar edge. Lamellar trama parallel. Pileipellis a cutis or trichoderm of hyaline, clamped elements 5–15 µm wide, often constricted at septa; terminal cells primarily clavate.


REFERENCES: (E. M. Fries, 1838) P. Kummer, 1871. (Kauffman, 1918; Hesler & Smith, 1963; Bird & Grund, 1979; Smith, Smith & Weber, 1979; Phillips, 1981; Largent, 1985; Arora, 1986; Arnolds, 1990; Breitenbach & Kränzlin, 1991; Phillips, 1991/2005; Schalkwijk-Barendsen, 1991; Lincoff, 1992; Metzler & Metzler, 1992; Arnolds, 1995; Canduso, 1997; Barron, 1999; Boertmann, 2000; Nonis, 2001; McNeil, 2006; Miller & Miller, 2006; Boccardo et al., 2008; Trudell & Ammirati, 2009; Boertmann, 2010; Bessette et al., 2012; Buczacki et al., 2012; Lodge et al., 2013; Kuo & Methven, 2014; Desjardin, Wood & Stevens, 2015; Siegel & schwarz, 2016; Baroni, 2017; Gminder & Böhning, 2017; Wood & Dunkelman, 2017; Boertmann, 2018; Sturgeon, 2018; Læssøe & Petersen, 2019; Kibby, 2020; MacKinnon & Luther, 2021; McKnight et al., 2021.) Herb. Kuo 07140302, 07240402, 05250802, 09011601, 05252402.


This website contains no information about the edibility or toxicity of mushrooms.


 

Hygrocybe miniata

Hygrocybe miniata

Hygrocybe miniata

Hygrocybe miniata

Hygrocybe miniata

Hygrocybe miniata

Hygrocybe miniata
Spore print

Hygrocybe miniata
Spores

Hygrocybe miniata
Basidia

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Cite this page as:

Kuo, M. (2024, October). Hygrocybe miniata. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/hygrocybe_miniata.html