Pluteus     Genus

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)

Spores pink or reddish

Plutaceae     Family Gills free Often growing on wood

Links from Look-alikes Coprinus     Genus All deliquescing fungi go here All striate or pleated-capped non-Gomphidius black-spored mushrooms go here (but not randomly wrinkled ones: they go in Psathyrella) When young, the cap usually cylindrical, and in any case much taller than it is wide and hugging the stem tightly; the gills at this stage are white, and packed very close together Cap usually deliquescing and surviving in age as uplifted tatters or split fragments Cap often covered with powder or tiny hairs, especially when young

Pluteus     Genus     Fries

Diagnosis

• Lacking a volva
  
• Growing on wood or woody debris
  
• Typically bluntly conical or campanulate when young, becoming umbonate (often a flat cap with a very small umbo) in age
  
• Often somewhat scaly or fibrillose on the disk

• When young, the gills of a pluteus are white and closely packed, and the cap is taller than it is wide and close to the stalk. This often leads to confusion with Coprinus, which also has these characteristics at this stage of development.
  
• Usually, a Pluteus' gills will start to turn pink a few hours after picking (as it tries to ripen its and discharge as many of its spores as possible before drying up completely), but the following guidelines may help without the wait:
  
• if the cap is wrinkled (not striate), sticky, or brightly colored, it is a pluteus
  
• if the cap is powdery, coarsely shaggy, or prominently striate, it's probably a Coprinus
  
• If none of these conditions are present, try keying out your find in both genera

Microscropic Characters

• Gills, gill edges often with prominent cystidia that are often crowned with distinct spikes or horns

Narrow down your identification:

• Cap bright red, orange, yellow, or fulvous

• Cap brown, dark brown or blackish

• Cap white or light grey; sometimes with more darkly-colored fibrils

Glossary

Mushrooms

People

Newsletter

Events