Fairy Inkcaps - Coprinellus disseminatus

As the sun has been shining a lot recently, I've been making an effort to enjoy it. After a busy week, I chose today to do some more exploring around our new neighbourhood. There's a nature trail nearby, so I had a walk through there, keeping my eye out for mushrooms as always.

I wasn't expecting much, as it's been really dry recently. The Turf Mottlegills which I found last week had already disappeared. But when I walked off the main path into a more wooded area, I caught sight of a cluster of Fairy Inkcaps, or Coprinellus disseminatus.

While most Inkcaps auto-digest into a black liquid, Fairy Inkcaps don't do this. They do, however, darken with age, and their caps expand outwards as they mature. For this reason, two Fairy Inkcaps growing next to each other could look completely different!

They tend to grow in clusters, sometimes hundreds in numbers, on or beside dead wood. The cluster I found today were on the bottom of an upturned tree. It was only due to the amount of them that I even spotted them.

Fairy Inkcaps are tiny, with caps up to 1.5cm tall. I like to think that fairies wear them as hats. Some people even call them Fairies Bonnets, I assume for this very reason. Other names include Trooping Crumble Caps and Trooping Inkcaps. Their spore print is black.

Characteristics

Habitat: On or beside dead or rotting wood, such as stumps.
Cap: 0.5-1.5cm in diameter. Ovate at first, expanding to convex. Young Fairy Inkcaps have almost white caps, turning beige, then finally grey with black edges. Deeply grooved.
Stem: 15-40mm long, white, turning darker towards the base, which is covered in a white down. Hollow and extremely fragile.
Gills: Adnate, first white, then grey and finally black.
Spore print: Black
Season: Late spring to late autumn
Edibility: Edible, however they are so small it's not worth it!

Make sure to keep an eye out for these tiny treasures throughout the summer and autumn!

Disclaimer: I am not an expert. Never eat a mushroom you've found without confirmation that it is edible by an expert.

Comments

Milky Conecap - Conocybe apala

Often, I will find a mushroom and never be able to work out what it is. I will spend days searching the internet and looking in books, but never able to solve the mystery. It can be really frustrating. This happened to me at the beginning of May, when I was walking home from an appointment and saw a white mushroom poking out of the grass nearby. It was the first time I'd seen a mushroom in over a month, so I was pretty excited about it. I did what I usually do: took pictures, examined it, made notes. Then I went home to do some research, and couldn't find anything. So I forgot about it. Yesterday, whilst I was doing research for another mushroom, I accidentally clicked on a wrong link and ended up on a page describing the Milky Conecap , or Conocybe apala. I had an "aha!" moment, as I recognised instantly that it was the same mushroom I had spent so long trying to find a name for. Let me tell you, there's nothing more satisfying than putting the final pieces...

Dung Roundhead - Stropharia semiglobata

The start of mushroom season is finally upon us, and I couldn't be more excited. Although the bouts of rain weren't ideal for our wedding last week, they did mean lots of exciting finds during our honeymoon, walking through damp North Wales. I will no doubt make many posts about the intriguing finds we stumbled across during our time away, but I wanted to start at our first fungal encounter, the Dung Roundhead , or Stropharia semiglobata. Scattered across the huge pastures we were walking through were hundreds of them. And though the name suggests they grow exclusively on dung, the majority of them were in fact beside dung. The gills are adnate and ranged in colour depending on the age of the mushroom. Younger ones had a more purplish tinge to them, while the more mature species had black gills. The spore print is a dark purplish-brown colour. Characteristics Habitat: On or beside dung, usually in pasture. Cap: 1-3cm across, hemispherical. Cream to y...

Common Conecap - Conocybe tenera

Lately I've been seeing mushrooms pop up all over the place, which of course excites the little nerd inside of me. Unfortunately, most of the time when I've seen a cluster of mushrooms, I've been on the bus and, being as awful at directions as I am, I can never remember where I saw them. Such is life. Today I spotted a couple peeking out from the grass not far from where I found the Milky Conecaps last month. In fact, at first glance I thought that's what they might be. However, it was the afternoon and we hadn't had any rain since yesterday, plus their caps weren't quite long enough. I like to describe Milky Conecaps as looking like almost-closed umbrellas. Instead, these mushrooms looked like tiny hats. So I snapped some pictures, put one in my bag and went on my way. Although they turned out not to be Milky Conecaps, they are still somewhat closely related. These small buddies are called Common Conecaps , or Conocybe tenera. They enjoy simil...

The Shroom Room

Search This Blog