Rickenella fibula

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Rickenella_fibula.html

Ecology: Probably saprobic but apparently involved in some sort of mutualism with moss; growing alone, scattered, or gregariously in moss beds; spring through fall, or over winter in warm climates; widely distributed in North America. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois.

Cap: 2-10 mm across; blocky or squarish at first, becoming convex, then broadly convex, with or without a shallow central depression; tacky when fresh but soon dry; bald or, with a hand lens, very finely hairy; the margin translucent-lined by maturity; orange with a whitish margin when fresh and young; soon fading to yellowish orange overall, with a darker orange center.

Gills: Running deeply down the stem; distant or nearly so; short-gills in several tiers; creamy or very pale orange.

Stem: 5-45 mm long; 0.5-1.5 mm thick; equal; dry; bald; colored like the cap; basal mycelium white.

Flesh: Insubstantial; pale.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive

Chemical Reactions: KOH negative on cap surface.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 3-4 x 1.5-2.5 m; ellipsoid; smooth; hyaline and 1- to 3-guttulate in KOH; inamyloid. Cheilocystidia and pleurocystidia 25-40 x 5-7.5 m; fusiform with tapered or subcapitate apices; thin-walled; hyaline in KOH; smooth. Pileipellis a tightly packed cutis with numerous pileocystidia 50-100 x 7.5-12.5 m, fusiform with wide bases and tapered, subcapitate, or capitate apices, thin-walled, smooth, hyaline in KOH.

For #FungiFriday I present these interesting #mushrooms I encountered in Jennings, #Louisiana earlier this week. I believe they are Fringed Sawgills (Lentinus crinitus). At least the top of their caps have the scaly appearance that this species is known for…

Trichaptum biforme

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Trichaptum_biforme.html

Ecology: Saprobic; growing in overlapping clusters on hardwood logs and stumps; late spring, summer and fall; found in all 50 of the United States and all the Canadian provinces; in eastern North America it is one of the most commonly encountered fungi. Trichaptum biforme is a voracious decomposer of dead wood. It causes a straw colored sapwood rot in standing trees.

Cap: Up to 6 cm across and 3 mm thick; more or less semicircular, irregularly bracket-shaped, or kidney-shaped; flattened-convex; hairy, finely hairy or fairly smooth; with zones of whitish to grayish white colors; the margin sometimes pale lilac.

Pore Surface: Purple to lilac, with the strongest shades near the margin; fading to buff or brownish in age; with 3-5 angular pores per mm; usually eroding and developing spines or teeth with maturity (sometimes appearing more like a toothed mushroom than a polypore); not bruising.

Stem: Absent.

Flesh: Whitish; tough and leathery.

Chemical Reactions: KOH negative to pale yellowish on flesh and cap surface.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 6-8 x 2-2.5 ; smooth; cylindric to slightly allantoid; hyaline in KOH; inamyloid. Cystidia abundant; up to 35 x 5 ; more or less fusoid; apically encrusted. Hyphal system dimitic.

Morchella prava

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Morchella_prava.html

Ecology: Possibly saprobic and mycorrhizal at different points in its life cycle; growing alone, scattered, or gregariously under various hardwoods and conifers, often (but not always) in sandy soil near bodies of water (lakes, rivers); April, May, and June; apparently widely distributed in northern North America (DNA verified from Montana to Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Michigan, and Ontario).

Cap: 3-6 cm tall and 2-5 cm wide; irregularly shaped but often more or less egg-shaped with a slightly narrowed or widely conical apex; pitted and ridged, with the pits randomly arranged and oriented and irregular in outline; when young with bald or finely velvety, flattened or widely rounded, pale yellowish to whitish ridges and medium to dark gray or black pits; when mature with bluntly rounded to sharp or eroded, brownish yellow to yellowish brown ridges and similarly colored pits (but often remaining in the "gray stage" for a prolonged period and apparently never maturing); attached to the stem directly, without a groove; hollow.

Stem: 2.5-4 cm high and 1-3 cm wide; equal above a slightly swollen base; whitish to yellowish; often discoloring reddish brown; bald or nearly so; hollow.

Microscopic Features: Spores (16-) 17-21 (-24) x (8-) 10-12 <NOBR>(-13) ;</NOBR> smooth; elliptical; without oil droplets; contents homogeneous. Asci 8-spored. Paraphyses cylindric with variable apices; septate; hyaline to brownish or brown in KOH. Elements on sterile ridges scattered and infrequent (often difficult to locate or distinguish from paraphyses); 75-125 x 7.5-37.5 ; septate; hyaline to ochraceous, brownish, or brown in KOH; terminal cell widely cylindrical with a rounded, subcapitate, capitate, subclavate, clavate, or widely subfusiform apex.

Urnula craterium

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Urnula_craterium.html

Ecology: Saprobic on sticks and small logs (often buried) of hardwoods; growing alone, scattered, or in dense clusters; spring; widely distributed east of the Rocky Mountains. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois, Virginia, and Qu&#233;bec.

Fruiting Body: 5-9 cm high; 3-9 cm across; at first shaped like a deep cup or an urn with a vaguely defined stem portion; often expanding to goblet-shaped or cup-shaped with age.

Fertile (upper, or inner) surface: Dark brown to gray or nearly black; smooth and bald.

Sterile (lower, or outer) surface: Brown to gray or nearly black; bald, roughened, or scaly; often becoming finely cracked with age&mdash;or with pigments breaking up to form chevron-like or nearly reticulate patterns; the margin becoming lacerated and tattered.

Pseudostem: Poorly defined at apex; 3-6 cm high; 0.5-1.5 cm wide; tapering to base; black; fuzzy toward the base.

Flesh: White; tough; unchanging when sliced.

Odor: Not distinctive.

Chemical Reactions: KOH on fertile surface greenish black.

Microscopic Features: Spores 21-35 x 9-13 m; ellipsoid to elongated-ellipsoid; smooth; hyaline in KOH. Asci 8-spored; 150-300 x 10-15 m; cylindric; hyaline in KOH. Paraphyses 125-325 x 2-4 m; filiform with rounded, subacute, or subclavate apices; smooth; septate; either hyaline, solitary, and projecting beyond the asci&mdash;or with agglutinated brown apices, bundled, and not projecting. Excipular surface elements cylindric; 2.5-6 m wide; septate; walls black to dark brown in KOH; smooth or a little encrusted; occasionally branching and/or developing lobes or nodules.

Hypomyces lactifluorum

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Hypomyces_lactifluorum.html

Ecology: Parasitic on species of Russula, Lactarius, and Lactifluus&mdash;especially Russula brevipes, Lactarius deceptivus, and other members of the Lactarius piperatus group; summer and fall, or over winter in warm climates; originally described from North Carolina (von Schweinitz 1822); widely distributed in North America throughout Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The illustrated and described collections are from Georgia and Michigan.

Fruiting Body: A hard, pimply, orange coating that attacks the host rapidly and soon covers all surfaces, disfiguring the mushroom; with old age the orange often darkens to purplish red.

Perithecia: Reddish brown to nearly black; usually visible to the naked eye.

Chemical Reactions: KOH on surface instantly dark purple, even in dried specimens.

Microscopic Features: Spores 30-40 x 5-7 m; fusiform; verrucose; apiculi about 5 m long, narrowing to a point; hyaline to ochraceous in water and KOH; septate once. Asci 200-275 x 6-10 ml cylindric; 8-spored. Subicular hyphae 3-10 m wide, septate, smooth, sometimes gelatinized, purple-walled in KOH.

Entoloma caccabus

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Entoloma_caccabus.html

Ecology: Saprobic; growing gregariously in bare soil under northern red oak, white oak, hop hornbeam, and persimmon; July; Coles County, Illinois.

Cap: 1-3 cm; planoconvex with a slightly incurved margin at first, becoming shallowly depressed, with a wavy margin and a small umbo; moist; bald; dark grayish brown to dark yellowish brown at first, fading markedly to medium yellowish brown (but often retaining a darker center); the margin becoming slightly translucent-lined with age.

Gills: Attached to the stem; nearly distant; whitish at first, becoming pink; short-gills frequent.

Stem: 2.5-3.5 cm long; 2-4 mm thick; equal; dry; bald or finely silky; whitish to grayish or brownish.

Flesh: Thin; insubstantial; watery whitish to brownish.

Odor and Taste: Mealy.

Chemical Reactions: KOH on cap surface negative.

Spore Print: Pink.

Microscopic Features: Spores 7-10 x 6-8 ; 5- to 6-sided; heterodiametric or occasionally nearly isodiametric; angular; smooth; hyaline. Hymenial cystidia absent. Pileipellis a cutis; elements 5-12.5 wide, brown to brownish in 10% ammonia, with intracellular pigment. Clamp connections present.

Finally polished up some of the slime mold photos from last night's microscopy session. I'm fairly confident this is the species Metatrichia vesparia; big thanks to @regularslimeguy.bsky.social for some tips that helped nail down the ID!

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A nest full of mushroom hatchlings.

Hapalopilus croceus

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Hapalopilus_croceus.html

Ecology: Saprobic and parasitic on the wood of oaks; growing alone or in small groups; causing a white rot of the heartwood; summer and fall; widely distributed east of the Great Plains. The illustrated and described collection is from Ohio.

Cap: 4-10 cm across; 3-5 cm deep; semicircular to kidney-shaped; convex; moist; finely fuzzy; golden orange.

Pore Surface: Bright golden orange; not bruising; with 2-3 angular pores per mm; tubes to 2-4 mm deep.

Stem: Absent.

Flesh: Thick; zoned with zones of golden orange, pastel orange, and brownish; fairly soft.

Chemical Reactions: KOH instantly dark purple on all parts.

Microscopic Features: Spores 7-8 x 4-5 m; ellipsoid; smooth; hyaline in KOH; inamyloid. Hyphal system monomitic; hyphae 2-4 m wide, smooth or encrusted, hyaline or brownish orange, thin-walled, septate, clamped at septa, often agglutinated with brownish to orangish encrusting material.

some turkey tail (Trametes versicolor) for #FungiFriday (^ω^)

A thought I've had a few times lately: my current setup is far from sufficient for this, but in the future I think it might be fun to try livestreaming a bit of microscopy. Would anyone actually wanna watch such a thing?

I'm not saying it would happen anytime soon (or ever), but I may start looking into what upgrades it would take to make a livestream feasible if there's any interest. Poll below if you think that sounds neat ig

and as a thank you for reading this whole thing, check the replies for a low-quality cystidia pic

An old stump sees some new residents #mosstodon #sporespondence #mushroomMonday

Didn't find quite as many cool fungi as I was hoping for this weekend, but there was still plenty to see! Here's a nice one which I believe is a gilled polypore (Trametes betulina); I collected a bit of this specimen to put under the microscope so hopefully in the next couple days I'll have a chance to get some pics and confirm the species