Larger Vaginatae     Stirp

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)

Fruiting body having a combination of some of the following characteristics:
Stalk growing out of a cup of cottony tissue called a volva (all white-spored mushrooms with a volva go here)
Cap with scattered patches or flakes of the same sort of tissue as the volva (see second picture), easily peeled off
Annulus (skirt-like ring on stalk)

Cap margin distinctly striate in maturity
Either (most commonly) annulus absent and colors brown or grey, or
(rarely) annulus present and colors bright: red, orange or yellow
Volva sack-like in some species, in others clamped tightly to the stem, leaving traces in bands of color on the stalk

Cap usually some shade of brown or gray, occasionally white
Annulus absent, but there may be strangulated zones on the stem
Universal veil material generally not present (or only occasionally) on the cap
Volva sac-like, or clamped tightly to the stem

Diagnosis

• Cap more than 1 1/2" across at maturity
  
• Basidia mostly four-sterigmate

Narrow down your identification:

Cap tawny brown
Stipe usually white, sometimes tinged with cap color

Cap up to 3" across, brownish grey
Volva saclike, unusually thick and tough, pale pink

Cap dark brown, lightening towards the edges, fading in age
Universal veil material with a yellow outer layer
Margin tuberculate-striate

Cap up to 6" across; white to brownish grey; tuberculate-striate reach almost half-way to the center of the cap in mature specimens
We were unable to find a volva on the two specimens we found

Cap up to 4" across; dark brown
Volva clamped tightly to the stalk, leaving a series of colored bands known as "strangulate zones" on the stalk as the stalk grows
Universal veil material light grey at first, quickly darkening; frequently forming patches on the cap

Cap up to 4" across; dark brown to charcoal grey, fading in age, usually not with patches of universal veil material
Volva sack-like, irregular

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