.jpg "Alboleptonia sericella © Michael Wood -- Click for Larger Image")
Alboleptonia sericella
Mycologia 62(3): 448. 1970.
Common Name: none
Cap 1.0-4.5 cm in diameter, at first deeply convex, expanding to broadly convex, the disc depressed or raised; margin occasionally wavy, incurved when young, decurved to plane in age; surface appressed-fibrillose, sometimes appearing silky, white to cream-buff, sporadically bruising pale salmon to cream-yellow; context thin, 2-4 mm thick at the disc, white; odor mild; taste somewhat farinaceous.
Gills adnate, notched, to subdecurrent, close, thin, relatively narrow, up to 4 mm in width, white to cream in youth, tinged pinkish in age from maturing spores; lamellulae up to 3-seried.
Stipe 2.5-5.5 cm long, 4.0-8.0 mm thick, fragile, cartilaginous, more or less equal, stuffed to hollow at maturity, round to grooved longitudinally; surface of apex pruinose, elsewhere inconspicuously striate with scattered cottony scales, white tomentose at the base; partial veil absent.
Spores 9.0-11.5 x 7.0-8.5 µm, angular, hilar appendage conspicuous, with a central guttule; spore print pink.
Solitary to scattered in open areas of mixed hardwood/conifer woods; fruiting from late fall to mid-winter; locally common.
Unknown.
Alboleptonia sericella is typically found in Tanbark-Oak/Coast Redwood associations (Lithocarpus densiflora & Sequoia sempervirens). A fragile mushroom, it is recognized by a whitish color, attached gills that become pinkish in age, and a slightly farinaceous taste. It resembles Clitopilus prunulus, another pink-spored mushroom, but the latter has distinctly decurrent gills, a grey cap, and a pronounced farinaceous odor. Other look-alikes include Inocybe geophylla, which can be distinguished by brownish gills, and a green corn odor, and some white species of Hygrophorus. These, however, typically have thick, waxy gills, and white spores. The angular spores of Alboleptonia sericella are distinctive will help to confirm an identification.
Bougher, N.L. & Syme, K. (1998). Fungi of Southern Australia. University of Western Australia Press: Nedlands, Australia. 391 p.
Largent, D.L. (1994). Entolomatoid Fungi of the Western United States and Alaska. Mad River Press: Eureka, CA. 516 p.
Largent, D.L. & Benedict, R.G. (1970). Studies in the rhodophylloid fung II: Alboleptonia, a new genus. Mycologia 62(3): 437-452.
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