Pluteus cervinus

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

Gills free
Often growing on wood

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

Cap brown, dark brown or blackish

Pluteus cervinus     (Ja.C. Schaeffer: Fries) Kummer

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 5" across; dark brown and often wrinkled and tacky when young, lightening in age, often slightly virgate

• Given a deep enough layer of wood, this mushroom can get quite large

Microscropic Characters

• Spores 5-7 x 4-6 µm
  
• Pleurocystidia 60-90 x 12-18 µm, thick-walled, horned

Comments

3

This is the most common species of Pluteus
Some people recognize a second species, P. magnus, for the robust, dark-capped, often wrinkled version (shown in our first picture here)


 

 

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