Conocybe aporos (Basidiomycetes)
Macro Details
Cap - 10-21mm across, ochraceous with dark brown umbonate centre, hygrophanous, smooth, margin translucently striate when moist, which is lost upon drying.
Gills - crowded, annexed, differing length, light ginger brown to brown with white floccose edge, entire
Stem - 45-55mm x 2.5 - 3.5mm with base up to 6mm. Buff, lightly pruinose, browning where handled, base white, with fugacious, striate annulus. Flesh brown with paler margin, base and apex remaining pale cream, fistulose. Smell faint of Pelargonium.
Micro Details
Spores- 7.9-8.5 x 3.9-4.5um-ellipsoid, without germ pore.
Cheilocystidia clustered, abundant, skittle-like, capitate.
A spring species, found in a scattered group among mosses, live and dead Elm trees. It is known to have a preference for calcareous conditions and it could be that this particular site may have been built up in the past utilising material containing alkaline properties. There are other sites around Hampstead Heath that have such properties with alkaline loving species in evidence.
Occasional and Widespread
Small brown mushroom with annulus.
Mosses
Occasional & Widespread
Moss among living, dead and dying Ulmus procera
Parkland with Scattered Trees.
April 27th.