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Clitocyboid mushroom in Vermont


Vermonter

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I'm guessing this is a species of Clitocybe, but I'm not sure.  I was looking at Clitocybe/Lepista irina, but I suspect that species should look more like C./L. nuda aside from coloration. The spore print is a cream color to my eye, though it's not all that different from a print I got last month from C./L. nuda--this is slightly paler and less peachy. There is some water staining on the lower part, but I think you can get the idea pretty well.  The color of the spore print in the photo is fairly accurate, but not exactly true to life.  The caps shown range from about 5.5 - 17 cm. The odor and taste are not distinctive to me.

East-central Vermont, small clearing in a mixed forest (maple, oak, pine, etc.)

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Against the white background, the spore print appears to be slightly pigmented, but this may be (partly) due to the liquid that leached out of the mushroom. That's a nice idea about printing out "spore paper". What kind of paper do you use? A type of paper with a glossy non-absorbent surface --like what is used to print photos-- may tend to repel moisture. Even so, with really moist mushrooms, leaching into the print itself can alter the perception of color. 

As for the mushrooms, they do look like some kind of Lepista... smooth cap surfaces that appear to be somewhat translucent (due to moisture), closely-spaced gills with notched attachment, apex of stipe with floury coating. I have found that Lepista spore prints --although never pure white-- exhibit variable levels of pigmentation. Mushrooms I have IDed as L. irina had pale spore print. The "flowery" aroma seems to be at least somewhat variable. In Baroni's USA/Canada field guide the species L. glaucocana is portrayed; gill color is described as tinged with pale purple/lilac, but in the photo the gills look white/buff. 

Other genera that produce similar-looking mushrooms mainly have pure white spore prints. Clitocybe robusta and Rhodocollybia butyracea are two exceptions, but the Vermont mushrooms seen in this discussion don't look like either of these species. 

The following is a collection I IDed as L. irina a few years ago.  Interestingly, one time when I measured spores for a similar collection made in the same location, the dimensions matched L. glaucocana better than either L. irina or L. nuda. 663084963_LepistairinaRG10-22.thumb.JPG.edb93e86ee2c5892033512e62d9ace10.JPG88319664_LepistairinaRG10-23.thumb.JPG.3111c24148eb87a3bd206bb7af232e36.JPG

I just proposed L. glaucocana for one of my old MO L. "irina" observations.   https://mushroomobserver.org/146199

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Thank you Dave W!  It may be that Lepista irina is the best bet for what I found.  There was no hint of purple anywhere, even on the youngest fruit bodies.  I was thinking that L. irina would be shaped more like the L. nuda specimens I have found, i.e. shorter stipes with bulbous bases and more strongly inrolled cap rims--but looking at what people call L. irina on MO, there's a lot of variation in these features.

Regarding the spore print--the color of the liquid stain happens to be fairly close to the color of the spores.  The spore print is definitely pigmented--though quite pale.  I called it cream, but it seems that all these color names can mean slightly different things to different people.  I think the tint is mainly toward yellow with perhaps just a hint of peach.

Regarding the paper--I just use regular cardstock.  I haven't had trouble before this with liquid stains--I guess this mushroom was wetter than most I've used.

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I just now noticed that the monitor I'm using at this moment better shows the pigmentation of the spore prints seen above than does my laptop. Another "fly in the ointment"! Yup, perception of color --even when observers are viewing the same object in real live time-- is at least somewhat subjective.

Then there's also the problem of fulfilling an expectation. Many years ago, before I had ever found a single specimen of L. irina, I convinced myself that the pale yellow spore print associated with a collection of Clitocybe robusta looked like a Lepista print. Lucky for me the worst that came out of this was one really bad-tasting meal. 

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