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Agrocybe vervacti

by Michael Kuo, 26 August 2026

Agrocybe vervacti isn't going to take your breath away. It's an LBM (Little Brown Mushroom) found in waste places and disturbed ground, requiring microscopic examination for confident identification. Like other species of Agrocybe it features dull brown mature gills and lacks bright colors. Crucially, its spores feature a very tiny, inconspicuous pore (less than 0.5 µm wide). Agrocybe pusiola is very similar, but usually smaller; it is best separated by its spores, which lack a pore entirely. Other similar species (for example Agrocybe pediades) have spores with large pores.

Description:

Ecology: Saprobic; growing scattered or gregariously in grass, waste places, disturbed soil, or woodchip beds; summer and fall; originally described from Sweden (Fries 1821); widespread in Europe; in North American recorded east of the Rocky Mountains. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois and Ohio.

Cap: 0.5–3 cm; convex, becoming broadly convex or nearly flat; moist when fresh; bald; brownish yellow; hygrophanous; the margin not lined.

Gills: Broadly attached to the stem; close; short-gills present; whitish at first, becoming brownish.

Stem: 3–7 cm long and 1–2 mm thick; equal; fragile; bald; whitish above, brownish yellow below; basal mycelium white; attached to thin white rhizomorphs.

Flesh: Insubstantial; whitish to brownish; unchanging when sliced.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive; taste mild or slightly bitter.

Chemical Reactions: KOH on cap surface negative or slowly pinkish.

Microscopic Features: Spores 7–10 x 5–6 µm; ellipsoid to subellipsoid, with an inconspicuous pore less than 0.5 µm wide; smooth; walls about 1 µm thick; pale brownish to brownish yellow in KOH. Basidia 18–22 x 5–7 µm; clavate; 4-sterigmate. Cheilocystidia 35–60 x 10–20 µm; lageniform, with a very long neck; smooth; thin-walled; hyaline in KOH. Pleurocystidia similar to cheilocystidia. Pileipellis hymeniform; terminal cells 6–10 µm wide, clavate to subglobose or obpyriform; hyaline to brownish in KOH; pileocystidia scattered, 30–55 x 5–10 µm, lageniform, smooth, thin-walled.

REFERENCES: (E. M. Fries, 1821) R. Singer, 1936. (Singer, 1978; Moser, 1983; Breitenbach & Kränzlin, 1995; Barron, 1999; Nauta, 2005; Boccardo et al., 2008; Buczacki et al., 2012; Ryman, 2018.) Herb. Kuo 05030601, 08182602.

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Spore print

Spores

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Cite this page as:

Kuo, M. (2026, August). Agrocybe vervacti. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/agrocybe_vervacti.html