Mycena haematopus

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

None of the special features distinguishing the other white-spored genera:
Gills not free, as in the Lepiotas and Amanitas
Basidia not extra-long, as in the Hygrophoraceae
Spores smooth, except for Lentinellus

Growing on trees or dead wood, leaves, or sticks, or organic debris, often in moss

Shaped like a “normal mushroom”
Small and fragile to medium-sized, except for one large, grey-capped species

Fruiting body small: cap up to 1 1/4" across (and most clearly smaller than that)

Cap bell-shaped, conical, or either of those with an umbo; margin never incurved; usually some shade of grey or brown, but purplish in one unusually large species.
Stem thin; either very fragile or very tough
Some species have a colored juice that can be squeezed out of the end of the stem
No rhizomorphs

Bleeding Mycena     Subgenus Cap and stem exuding a yellowish, orange, or red latex if cut and squeezed

Links from Look-alikes Brownish Mycena     Subgenus Cap some shade(s) of brown, grey, black and white, with no other colors

Mycena haematopus     (Fries) Quélet

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 and stem exuding a dark red latex when cut and squeezed
  
• Cap up to 2" across, reddish brown or vinaceous on disk; margin lighter and greyer, often translucent-striate; oval (almost hemispherical) with a scalloped edge, becoming campanulate as the cap starts to open, and finally umbonate with an uplifted margin

• Stalk up to 4" long, 1/8" thick, dark reddish brown; covered with minute hairs or flakes at first, glabrous in age; long, coarse hairs at base
  
• Cestipose on decaying wood

Microscropic Characters

• Spores 8-11 x 5-7 µm, elliptical, amyloid

Comments

The reddish-brown spots on the caps are places where they have been cut and the latex has dried on them


 

 

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