Collybia cookei
Mycologia 27(4): 413. 1935.
Common Name: none
Synonym: Microcollybia cookei (Bres.) Lennox
For description see Halling, Lennox & 'California Mushrooms'.
Gregarious in humus, very rotten wood, or on blackened remains of other mushrooms in mixed hardwood-conifer forests; fruiting from fall through winter in coastal and montane areas; not uncommon.
Unknown.
Collybia cookei can be distinguished by its small dingy white mycenoid stature and growth from small pumpkin-colored sclerotia buried in humus, very rotten wood, or on the blackened remains of other fungi. If the sclerotia are not seen, the species is indistinguishable from Collybia cirrhata. In California, there occur two other sclerotium-forming collybias, Collybia tuberosa and Dendrocollybia racemosa. Collybia tuberosa differs in forming ellipsoid, dark reddish brown to almost black sclerotia and typically develops from old, rotten mushrooms; Dendrocollybia racemosa differs in forming a stipe covered with short side branches topped with asexual spores.
Antonín, V. & Noordeloos, M.E. (1997). A Monograph of Marasmius, Collybia and related general in Europe. Part 2: Collybia, Gymnopus, Rhodocollybia, Crinipellis, Chaetocalathus, and additions to Marasmius. IHW - Verlag: Eching, Germany. 256 p.
Antonín, V. & Noordeloos, M.E. (2010). A monograph of marasmioid and collybioid fungi in Europe. IHW-Verlag: Eching, Germany. 480 p.
Arnold, J.D. (1935). A Comparative Study of Certain Species of Marasmius and Collybia in Culture. Mycologia 27(4): 388-417.
Breitenbach, J. & Kränzlin, F. (1991). Fungi of Switzerland. Volume 3: Boletes and Agarics (1st Part). Strobilomycetaceae, Boletaceae, Paxillaceae, Gomphidiaceae, Hygrophoraceae, Tricholomataceae, Polyporaceae (lamellate). Verlag Mykologia: Luzern, Switzerland. 361 p
Desjardin, D.E., Wood, M.G. & Stevens, F.A. (2015). California Mushrooms: The Comprehensive Identification Guide. Timber Press: Portland, OR. 560 p.
Halling, R.E. (1983). The Genus Collybia (Agaricales) in the Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. J. Cramer: Braunschweig, Germany. 148 p.
Lennox, J.W. (1979). Collybioid genera in the Pacific Northwest. Mycotaxon 9(1): 117-231. (PDF)
Siegel, N. & Schwarz, C. (2016). Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast. Ten Speed Press: Berkeley, CA. 601 p.
— note the growth from a sclerotium
— note the growth from a sclerotium
— note the growth from a sclerotium
— Collybia growing on last season's Gymnopilus
