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Project Noah Nature School
Red small dry cap mushrooms on the shade of old growth trees. Signal Mountain, TN
Nah not a Hygrocybe, I'll bet that this mushroom has pores instead of gills. Boletus sp.
There is a Wikipedia entry for a "Hygrocybe miniata," but the picture doesn't look as much like yours as the one in my Audubon guide does.
The mushroom you photographed looks exactly like the Fading Scarlet Waxy Cap in my Audubon Field Guide to North American Mushrooms. What did the gills look like underneath? According to my field guide, these are small, dray, red to orange-red mushrooms. The caps are 3/4-1 5/8 inches wide; broadly convex, with incurved margin, becoming flat with sunken center. Stalks are 1-2 inches long. Their season is July-November, and you found yours in July. Their habitat is scattered on soil, among mosses, or on rotting logs, in deciduous and mixed woods. They are widely distributed in North America.
Spotted on Jul 9, 2011
Submitted on Jul 10, 2011
