Part 69

Flesh: thin, watery buff, drying out ochraceous and with a strong smell of new meal.

Spore-print: white.

Spores: medium sized, hyaline under the microscope, oval, not turning blue-grey in solutions of iodine, and 6-7 × 4-5 µm in size.

Marginal and facial cystidia: absent.

General Information: This fungus which grows from late spring to autumn is usually associated with a greying and finally a killing of the Sphagnum, noticeable from a distance even in the absence of the fruiting-bodies as paler patches in the rich green bog. Another agaric found only in Sphagnum bogs is Omphalina sphagnicola (Berkeley) Moser with decurrent gills and long, elongate, hyaline spores.

At the margin of Sphagnum bogs, the fungus Mycena bulbosa can be found attached to the base of tufts of rushes.

Potting up a sward of Sphagnum and retaining it in a warm greenhouse during winter favours the bog agarics to fruit when other larger fungi are not available.

~Mycena bulbosa~ (Cejp) Kühner

Cap: width 3-6 mm. Stem: width 1 mm; length 10-15 mm.

Description:

Cap: dirty white, greyish and very gelatinous.

Stem: very thin, hyaline with a very distinct hairy, basal disc.

Gills: crowded, adnexed, very short and whitish.

Spore-print: white, but because it is so small it is often difficult to see.

Spores: medium sized, hyaline under the microscope, ellipsoid, not blueing in solutions of iodine, and 8-10 × 4 µm in size.

Marginal cystidia: clavate or ventricose, hyaline and smooth.

Facial cystidia: absent.

Illustrations: T. palustris LH 83.

~Galerina paludosa~ (Fries) Kühner

Cap: width 10-20 mm. Stem: width 3-5 mm; length 50-90 mm.

Description:

Cap: conico-convex expanding slightly but retaining the central umbo, striate to half-way, sand-colour to red-brown, hygrophanous, minutely floccose because of remnants of veil distributed over its surface, but soon becoming smooth.

Stem: long, buried amongst the Sphagnum, red-brown and flecked with white fibrils, except at the finely hairy apex, the fibrils typically form a distinct but easily lost ring.

Gills: almost horizontal, adnate to subdecurrent, pale at first and then rust-brown.

Spore-print: rust-brown.

Spores: medium-sized, ovate to slightly lemon-shaped, minutely warty, honey-brown under the microscope and about 10 × 6 µm in size, (9-11 × 6-7 µm).

Facial cystidia: absent.

Marginal cystidia: hyaline, almost cylindrical or bottle-shaped with an inflated base.