Lepiota: Dark Brown Eyes in the Woods
For me, Lepiota are just the most beautiful mushrooms there are, with perhaps the exception of Marasmius plicatulus. And especially the small scaly species, with the velvety plushy caps and the delicate girdles and flocks on the stipe: little beauties! Those big edibles - I leave them for others!
by Else C. Vellinga
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Lepiota magnispora. © Warren Cardimon (CC-BY-NC) (from inaturalist.org, ID 145543016)
The coastal woods of central California are a goldmine for Lepiotas, starting with the group of rubrotincta (now Leucoagaricus rubrotinctoides) after the first rains, and then, the ones that blush or bleed when you touch them, the lilac and purple ones, the little white powdery species, and the nice dark brown eyes in the woods.
There are not many names around for all these treasures, just a few, and some old names, waiting to be recovered from long forgotten publications.
The ones with a striking dark eye in the centre of the cap, and shaggy, woolly stipes hide behind the name Lepiota clypeolaria in American field guides. However, Lepiota clypeolaria proper is a pale brown species, originally described from Europe, though widespread, and found throughout North America. In California, it might occur further north; it certainly is found in southern Oregon (close to Eugene for instance), and also in the mid-west. A nice picture can be found in the Swiss book 'Fungi of Switzerland vol. 4' (by Breitenbach & Kranzlin, 1995). So what is the local "L. clypeolaria"?
Murrill, a mycologist of the New York Botanical Garden at the beginning of the 20th century, came out west in 1911 and traveled from Seattle south to Pasadena; he spent several days in the Bay Area and visited Muir Woods, and the redwoods near La Honda. He collected everything, made short notes on several thousand collections, and sent them back east to be published in subsequent years.
He described many new species, one of them being Lepiota magnispora, with the following notes: "With bay eyes and scales. Always about same size and appearance. As expands to plane, eye fades''. His collections are still at the herbarium of the NYBG and in remarkably good condition, despite their old age. Spores and basidia (the cells which produce the spores), and the hairs on the cap are intact, though the sterile cells on the lamella edge have unfortunately faded away.
All microscopical characters are exactly the same as in our modern specimens! Now we use this forgotten name again, and we need to change L. clypeolaria in our American guide books accordingly (only Phillips' Mushrooms of North America has it right).
Lepiota magnispora is just as widespread as L. clypeolaria, with appearances reported throughout North America, Europe, and Asia (China and Japan). There are subtle differences in coloration between the western American and the European collections - the ones here have that very distinct, contrasting brown eye. But besides the real L. magnispora, there are other local yellow-brown caps, with a more gradual eye, often a bit stained, that are actually more similar in appearance to the European L. magnispora, than to our true brown-eyed ones.
These distinctive ones have been found only in our area - I have seen them in several places within a radius of 30 miles around San Francisco. Arora depicts them in his 'Mushrooms Demystified' as Lepiota clypeolaria form "nabiscodisca". They share the microscopical characters, especially the very characteristic penguin-shaped spores, with L. magnispora. BUT, they differ significantly in the base sequence of a little stretch of DNA. This particular stretch, called ITS, is widely used to distinguish between fungal species, and to compare collections and species.
I still have to see the cookies (I only learned this weekend where the name "nabiscodisca" came from), but now the form has become a species with its own name: Lepiota spheniscispora, the Lepiota with the penguin spores (Editor's note: Spheniscidae is the biological family name for penguins). This new species grows under oaks, but does not shun Eucalyptus groves. It is nice that some species do degrade that messy blue gum duff and debris!
So, dark brown eyes in the woods: the western L. magnispora; diluted brown eyes on a yellow brown background: the local L. spheniscispora.
This pattern of a widespread species, with a western American sister species, recurs in other groups: Macrolepiota rachodes (now Chlorophyllum rhacodes) is found in many places in Europe, and North America, but here in the western states a second species occurs, which has not been found in the wild in Europe; again Arora depicts both.
Similarly, Lepiota cristata is everywhere, especially in urban areas, but in the redwood groves and Monterey cypress stands Lepiota castaneidisca is common, but it has gone unnoticed and was lumped together with L. cristata. Murrill initially described this species as well.
The most amazing part of this story to me is, that there is so much to discover and marvel at! There is lots to do, and with the threat of vanishing oaklands and redwood forests we'd better hurry, and inventory now!
Background reading on the above-mentioned Lepiota species:
Arora, D., 1986. Mushrooms Demystified. 2nd Ed.
Breitenbach J. & F. Kranzlin, 1995. Fungi of Switzerland. Vo. 4. Agarics 2nd part.
Murrill, W.A., 1912. The Agaricaceae of the Pacific Coast II. Mycologia 4: 231-262.
Phillips, R., 1991. Mushrooms of North America.
Vellinga, E.C., 2000. Notes on Lepiota and Leucoagaricus. Type studies on Lepiota magnispora, Lepiota barssii, and Agaricus americanus. Mycotaxon 76: 429-438.
Vellinga, E.C., 2001. Lepiota clypeolaria, I presume? Mcllvainea 14 (2): 41-45.
Vellinga, E.C., 2001. Studies in Lepiota III. Some species from California, U.S.A. Mycotaxon 80: 285-296.
Vellinga, E.C., 2001. Studies in Lepiota IV. Lepiota cristata and L. castaneidisca. Mycotaxon 80: 297-306.
Else's other pick for most beautiful mushroom, Marasmius plicatulus
Editor's note: This article was originally published in 2002, in the Duff newsletter. Some photos have been added for context, and the genus and species names have been updated for educational purposes.
Mushrooms covered:
- Chlorophyllum brunneum
- Chlorophyllum molybdites (green-spored parasol, green-spored lepiota, the vomiter)
- Chlorophyllum rhacodes (Shaggy parasol)
- Lepiota clypeolaria (shield dapperling)
- Lepiota cristata (stinking dapperling, brown-eyed parasol, stinking parasol)
- Lepiota magnispora
- Lepiota spheniscispora (penguin-spored lepiota)
- Leucoagaricus rubrotinctoides
- Leucocoprinus cepistipes (onion-stalk parasol)