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Hygrocybe minutula

by Michael Kuo, 7 October 2024

This tiny waxy cap features a sticky, bright red cap and a sticky red to orange stem. The epithet minutula refers to the mushroom's minute size; a specimen with a cap 1.5 cm wide is a big one.

Similar very small, bright red waxy caps include Hygrocybe subminiata, which features a dry stem surface and, under the microscope, 2-spored basidia—and Hygrocybe subminutula, known from Florida, with smaller spores measuring 5–7 µm long.

Hygrophorus minutulus and Gliophorus minutulus are synonyms.

Description:

Ecology: Precise ecological role uncertain (see Lodge and collaborators, 2013); appearing in hardwood forests; growing alone or gregariously; summer; originally described from New York (Peck 1887); widespread in North America from the Great Plains eastward; also reported from California and the Pacific Northwest. The illustrated and described collection is from Ohio.

Cap: 0.5–1.5 cm across; convex, expanding to broadly convex; sticky when fresh; bald; scarlet, with a very thin, orangish, marginal zone; broadly lined from the margin inward.

Gills: Narrowly attached to the stem; distant or nearly so; short-gills present; orangish to red.

Stem: 3–5 cm long; 2–3 mm thick; more or less equal; sticky when fresh; bald; red above and orange to orangish yellow below; hollow; basal mycelium whitish to yellowish.

Flesh: Very thin; yellowish to red; not changing on exposure.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 6–10 x 3.5–4.5 µm; ellipsoid; apiculate; smooth; hyaline in KOH; inamyloid. Basidia 35–42 x 6–7 µm; subclavate; 4-sterigmate. Hymenial cystidia not found. Lamellar trama parallel. Pileipellis an ixocutis.


REFERENCES: (C. H. Peck, 1887) W. A. Murrill, 1916. (Hesler & Smith, 1963; Smith, Smith & Weber, 1979; Bessette et al., 2012; Lodge et al., 2013; Sturgeon, 2018.) Herb. Kuo 05252401.


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Hygrocybe minutula

Hygrocybe minutula

Hygrocybe minutula
Spores


Cite this page as:

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


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