Mycena strobilicola

Description:

Pileus 8-38 mm across, parabolical, campanulate to conical, often flattening with age with broad umbo, sometimes also somewhat umbilicate, smooth, hygrophanous, not sulcate, hardly translucent-striate, glabrous, slightly lubricous, dark chestnut to sepia brown, paler towards the margin. Lamellae 20-40 reaching the stipe, ascending, ventricose, narrowly adnate to adnate, dorsally intervenose in older specimens, whitish to pale grey, sometimes turning pink with age. Stipe 30-70 x 1.5-3.5 mm, straight to curved, hollow, terete, equal, somewhat firm, glabrous except for the minutely pruinose apex, grey brown, whitish above and dark brown towards the base, which is covered with coarse, long, whitish fibrils. Odour nitrous. Basidia 22-30 x 7-8 µm, clavate, 4-spored. Spores 7-9.6 x 3.6-5.8 µm, Q = 1.4-1.8, Qav ~ 1.7, pip-shaped to phaseoliform, smooth, amyloid. Cheilocystidia 27-80 x 9-20 x 0-5.5 µm, forming a sterile band, lageniform, fusiform, subcylindrical, more rarely clavate, apically narrowed into a longer or shorter neck, or rostrate to mucronate, more rarely without a neck. Pleurocystidia similar. Hyphae of the pileipellis 1.5-3.5 µm wide, embedded in gelatinous matter, smooth or very occasionally with an isolated, cylindrical excrescence. Hyphae of the cortical layer of the stipe 2-3 µm wide, sligthly gelatinized, smooth, with cylindrical to fusiform caulocystidia up to 100 µm long. Clamp connections absent or very rare.

Habitat:

On fallen and often buried cones of Picea. Widely distributed in the Picea areas. Occuring in the spring.