ID Assist - ruled out deadly Galerina

[verarose]

This is going to be a long one, but if you make it through, I appreciate you. I am very new to mushroom identification, being that these are the first mushrooms that I've tried to thoroughly identify. I don't plan to consume them, but I would love to develop the skill of positively identifying wild mushrooms. This one is really throwing me for a loop, mostly because the lack of blue bruising. For the record, colors are confusing for me. If I hadn't looked at many, many examples of spore prints online, I never would have concluded that my spore print was purple rather than rusty. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Anyway, I will provide as much information as I can and tons of pictures. 

Location: I found these growing in an overflow area of a small pond in Northeast Oklahoma. They were growing from the ground (not on a log) but there is lots of rotting wood/bark in and underneath the topsoil. I'm sorry, I dont know enough about types of wood yet, so I can't say what types of trees were around. 

Spore print: purple/brown. 

Cap: the immature fruiting bodies were caramel, almost honey/tan. There were others of a darker brown, but they may be another species all together. 

Gills: tan/cream colored? 

Stem: no visible ring on any specimens found. Color starts out honey/golden closest to the gills and becomes either brown or light further down (saw both in the same cluster) 

Mycelium: I did not take photos of this unfortunately. 

They grew in both clusters and gregarious. Unless, again, they were different species that were very similar. 

In the photos, it is very possible that the specimen on the plate are different. I pulled them from the same area, but a few days prior to the rest. 

I have been pouring over information and photos for days and I'm confident they are not Galerina marginata because of the spore print. My best guess is that they are either psilocybe cyanescens or azurescens. There were larger specimen around that did have the wavy cap, but these smaller ones I'm not sure about. The major factor still hanging me up on that is the lack of blue bruising. Again, I'm not super discerning as far as colors go, but I personally didn't notice any blue bruising after handling/squeezing any of these. 

If you have any useful tips/clues, I'm open to it! I can always go back and look at more fresh specimen if necessary. They were quite prolific in the area I saw them. 

This has been a fascinating learning adventure and I can't wait to get out there and start observing more

 

Edited December 15, 2022 by verarose
typo

[Dave W]

Interesting find. Good photos. I *think* they may all represent the same species. You have correctly ruled out Galerina marginata based upon the spore print color. G. marginata has a rusty-brown print. The print seen here is very dark. Any deviation from pure black --for example a purplish tinge-- may be best judged by taking a print on a pure black (non-absorbent) surface. Then, any difference from black is seen in contrast to the surface. 

I think you have a species of Hypholoma, maybe either H. dispersum or H. flavifolium. Compare with what is seen via the links.

https://www.mycoquebec.org/bas.php?trie=H&l=l&nom=Hypholoma dispersum / Hypholome dispersé&tag=Hypholoma dispersum&gro=35

https://www.mycoquebec.org/bas.php?l=r&nom=Hypholoma flavifolium / Hypholome à lames jaunes&post=Hypholoma&gro=35&tag=Hypholoma flavifolium

Settling upon a confident ID with things like this often requires use of a microscope.