Hygrocybe psittacina

This is a key to gilled mushrooms, that is, mushrooms having a definite cap with a fertile surface consisting of gills. The fruiting body usually also has a stem, although that may be lateral or absent (usually, then, the mushroom is growing from wood). You can use this key to identify mushrooms that you find.

Fruiting body containing fibers (usually in the stalk)

Spore print "light-colored": white or buff, sometimes tinged with pink or tan. Greenish and (except for the Russulales) yellow spore prints also go here
Stalk fibrous, not fracturing like a piece of chalk

Gills (at least) with a distinct waxy or silky feel, due to unusually long basidia
No annulus, armilla or volva
Cap often slimy
They tend to grow in cold areas, and sometimes fruit at times when it's too cold for other mushrooms
Several have an insulating slimy universal veil. This veil leaves the cap and the stalk slimy, except for the upper stalk where the gills covered it when the mushroom was a button.

Cap up to 2" across, usually less than 1" across; almost always slimy; often brightly colored
Often in moss
Stem often fragile and hollow

Fruiting body with no orange, red, or yellow coloration (pink, whitish and buff ones go here)

Here are the characters that distinguish this species from the others in its group. For its more general characters, see higher up on the page.
If there's just a few words or a microscopic feature here, a more thorough description can be found above.

Diagnosis

• Cap up to 1 1/4" across; translucent-striate at first, becoming opaque in age; deep "parrot" green at first, fading to a variety of other colors: pink, buff, or yellowish
  
• Stem slimy; usually concolorous with cap
  
• Gills colored like cap, but lighter

Microscropic Characters

• Spores 6.5-10 x 4-6 µm

Comments

Boudier (1904 - 1909) (where the picture comes from) seems to have felt that the stem of this mushroom got lighter at the base. None of my other books mention such a feature, however, and I can't see the base of the stalk in any of their pictures!
Clearly, further research is needed..


 

 

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