Please Help Identify

[Lloyd]

I found this mushroom growing in wood chips near my house.  The gills are cream on really young mushrooms turning to light brown as mushrooms mature.  They seem to grow singly and in clumps. The stem  has no vulva and is fibrous.  There is no veil.  The size of the mature mushrooms is two to three inches in diameter.  I found them in a ring about a month ago but couldn't identify them.

They have an earthy mushroom smell.

 

 

 

 

 

[CajunShroomer3578]

Pictures aren’t coming through 

[Lloyd]

See if that worked better.

 

[Dave W]

See the pics, now. Looks like a species of Agrocybe. The wood-chip habitat fits.

There are a few different species within the Agrocybe praecox cluster, and these mushrooms likely represent one of these types  http://www.mushroomexpert.com/agrocybe_praecox.html . In my experience, A. praecox is often found without a ring on the stalk, even though the mushroom likely started out with a partial veil. The second photo down shows what appears to be remnants of a partial veil clinging to the highest part of the stalk, where the stalk meets the gills.

Agrocybe putaminum is another wood-chip species. This type has no partial veil at all. 

[Lloyd]

I think that looks close but the cap characteristics seem different.  The closest mushroom pictures I have found online are labeled white flower shiitake.  The cap is deeply bumpy like a waffle.  The larger one is the least bumpy of any of these that I have found.  The smell is a nice mushroom smell like Agaricus campestris.  As the mushroom matures, the cap stays curled and the spore print is dark brown.

 

 

 

[Dave W]

Shiitake --Lentinula edodes-- does not occur in the wild in North America (unless someone tosses an inoculated log into the environment). This species fruits naturally on wood of a  type of oak that is not found in NA. 

I see the spore print is dark brown. This most definitely eliminates Lentinula edodes --a white spored mushroom-- from consideration. Spore print color supports the Agrocybe proposal. 

An old saying among dedicated mushroom hunters... "The mushrooms don't know what they're supposed to look like because they can't read the books". What this saying points out is that a given wild mushroom often does not conform completely to the field guide description. In this case, the cracked cap surface is a trait associated with a few different species of Agrocybe. The extremely deep cracks in the cap may be the result of weather conditions. 

Agaricus mushrooms do have dark brown spore prints. But all Agaricus mushrooms have gills that are free of the stalk (do not meet the stalk). The mushroom seen in the second photo has gills that are attached to the stalk. Definitely not any type of Agaricus. 

[Lloyd]

Thanks Dave for your help.  This has really stumped me.  This is the first year that I have seen this mushroom and everywhere I have seen it the cap has the waffle appearance.  In all of the books I have I couldn't find anything that matched.  In the websites I have searched, the only pictures that were similar were labeled "white flower mushroom".   I decided to cook a tiny bit and see if the flavor met the description of Agrocybe Praecox.  The flavor was mild and delicious.  I wish I could be more sure on the identification so that I could cook a plate of these.

[Dave W]

I have never tried eating any types of Agrocybe. In Europe and Asia, there's a species of Agrocybe that's cultivated for sale/consumption, A. aegerita (placed into the closely related genus Cyclocybe by some mycologists). Agrocybe mushrooms are saprobes. They pop up in new spots where there's the right nutrients combined with the right moisture at the right time. Unlike mycorrhizal species that associate with living trees --like chanterelles and boletes-- saprobic species do not occur in the same spots year after year (well, maybe for a couple years or so, until the nutrients are used up). 

[Lloyd]

I just found this picture labeled Agrocybe aegerita = Cyclocybe cylindracea on this website http://enciclopedia.funghiitaliani.it/termine.php?show=41.  This is the closest picture to what these look like that I have found yet.

The area these mushrooms popped up is where I spread about six inches of mixed conifer and deciduous wood chips given to me from a local tree service.  I did inoculate the area with a variety of mushroom strains one of which was Agrocybe aegerita but this didn't come up near where I inoculated it.

[Dave W]

 [(Agrocybe) + (pleasant edible quality) + (cracked cap)]    supports A./C. aergerita/cylindracrea as the ID. Interesting. I would not necessarily jump to this conclusion. But it is certainly not outside the realm of credibility to believe this saprobic species has "jumped ship" across the ocean. In this case perhaps inhabiting a very small area to begin. Very interesting. 

[Lloyd]

  I'm not positive on the I.D. but it seems closer than anything else I have found. Maybe since I inoculated an area within Agrocybe aergerita Black Poplar, or “Piopinno” mushroom it somehow made it 50' to where I found them growing.

Thanks for helping me Dave

[Dave W]

Very interesting. It may be useful to dehydrate some of this. Someone may want to analyze it. To my knowledge, A. aergerita has not been reported as a naturalized species in NA.

[vitog]

Lloyd, how did you inoculate that area with A. aergerita?  Did you use commercial spawn?

You also mentioned that you inoculated it with other mushroom strains.  What other mushrooms?

[Lloyd]

Vitog I used a strain called black poplar and used inoculated sawdust spawn to inoculate the wood chips.  Here are all of the strains from Mushroom Mountain that I used.  The wood chips are from dozens of sources and probable at least two dozen varieties of trees.  I would imagine that over the next few years I should have lots of indigenous mushrooms popping up.

Turkey Tail - Shiitake "Wide Range" - Reishi "RED" - Lions Mane "Pom Pom" - Morel "Blonde" - Shimeji "brown" - Chicken of the Woods - Tiger Sawgill - Black Poplar "Piopinno" - Shiitake "warm" - Oyster "Warm blue" - Oyster "Cold blue"

Dave,  There is some dried out sitting on top of the wood chips if anyone wants a sample.  I had another come up in my yard about 75 yards away that had an almost identical cap but it wasn't rolled on the edges but rather flat and jagged.  The mushroom was single, had cream colored gills, and a bulbous stem almost like a bolete.  Also the stem wasn't fibrous but snapped cleanly.  I was in a hurry on my way out of town so I didn't post a picture, but wish I would have.

[Dave W]

Non-fibrous snapping stem sounds like something other than Agrocybe. Since this mushroom is not pictured, we don't have a good handle on an ID proposal (for that one). Also, mushrooms submitted for study need to be dried really well. Material that's air dried outside is apt to become moldy, perhaps even before arriving in the mail. Maybe next time. 

[sm10]

I hope this posting is still active.  I have another very similar looking mushroom on my property in East Texas, near Eustace.  Plant ID and my eyeball say it should be Agrocybe dura.  I'd appreciate an expert opinion on this. Both specimens (very large) are found under an oak tree after the hottest part of summer.  I will do more research, but I think I can eat them.

[sm10]

This was the photo that I used to identify as Agrocybe dura (last one):

https://www.texasmushrooms.org/en/agrocybe_dura.htm