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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) large size (compared to Psathyrella), 2) sturdy stature, 3) a fibrillose to fibrillose-scaly cap and stem, 4) an obscure hairy ring, and 5) a blackish-brown spore deposit. Smith(5) says that its minutely roughened spores distinguish it from L. lacrymabunda but the online Species Fungorum, accessed March 27, 2016, gives this taxon as a synonym of Lacrymaria lacrymabunda (Bull.) Pat.
Smith(5) examined collections from OR, ID, CA, IL, KS, MD, MI, MN, NJ, NM, NY, OH, PA, and TN. There are collections at the University of British Columbia from BC, and at the University of Washington from WA, ID, ON, AK, IA, and MI, but these may include what Smith(5) would have designated Psathyrella lacrymabunda.
Cap: (3)5-12cm across, obtuse to convex at first, soon broadly convex to nearly flat, occasionally obtusely umbonate; ground color yellowish to dull tawny, sometimes nearly umber on the disc when old; "at first innately and rather densely fibrillose from grayish or slightly darker fibrils, becoming appressed fibrillose-scaly, not striate", at times radially rugulose [finely wrinkled], "margin at first appendiculate with cottony patches or fringed with fibrils of veil remnants", (Smith), (2)5-10cm across, obtuse to convex or broadly umbonate, becoming nearly flat; "dull yellow-brown to tawny to rusty-brown or sometimes darker brown, margin often paler"; dry, densely fibrillose or fibrillose-scaly but sometimes nearly smooth when old, margin splitting when old, and hung with veil remnants, (Arora)
Flesh: thick on disc; "watery brown to sordid yellowish", (Smith), rather thick; brownish to ocher, (Arora)
Gills: "adnate but readily seceding, sinuate", crowded, broad near stem, narrowed toward cap margin but not reaching it; "at first pale yellowish then rusty brown and finally shaded umber and mottled from the spores, edges whitish"; edges beaded with moisture, (Smith), adnate to notched or seceding, crowded; "pale yellowish becoming light brown to rusty-brown, finally deep brown as spores mature", faces usually mottled when old, edges white; edges sometimes beaded with droplets, (Arora)
Stem: (2)5-10(15)cm x 0.4-1.2(2)cm, equal, soon hollow; whitish in upper part, "slowly becoming dingy tan to tawny from the base upward"; fibrillose to floccose-scaly up to the ring or ring zone, (Smith), 5-15cm x (0.3)0.5-1.5(2)cm, "equal or swollen at base"; whitish in upper part, light brown to dingy tawny or ocher in lower part; dry, fibrillose or scaly, (Arora)
Veil: veil "soft and fibrillose-cottony, dingy buff to pallid, often copious", veil forms ring or ring zone, (Smith), "fibrillose-cottony, usually forming an obscure superior hairy or cottony ring or zone on stalk which is darkened by sporesΓÇ¥, (Arora)
Odor: earthy, not very distinctive, (Smith), pleasant (Phillips), none (Miller)
Taste: fungoid, not very distinctive, (Smith), pleasant (Phillips), unpleasant (Miller)
Microscopic spores: spores from a deposit 9-12 x 6-7 microns, from tissue of revived material 8-11 x 5.5-6.5 microns, "in face view ovate to elliptic and with an apical snout", in side view more or less inequilateral, ornamented with minute warts within a thin colorless sheath or envelope, "apex snoutlike with a pore at apex", "in KOH dark bister slowly becoming more chocolate color", in Melzer''s reagent dark bay, "inner wall about 0.6 microns thick"; basidia 24-32 x 8-13 microns, somewhat clavate, colorless in KOH; pleurocystidia (37)48-64 x 9-14 microns, "narrowly clavate, utriform or (rarely) obtusely fusoid-ventricose", colorless in KOH in young caps "but in old ones the lower part often with dull brownish walls", scattered in fascicles, content not distinctive in either KOH or in Melzer''s reagent, cheilocystidia abundant almost to the exclusion of other types of cells, 40-80(90) x 8-12 microns, flexuous [wavy], subcapitate to subfilamentous, colorless, smooth, content colorless; clamps present, (Smith), spores 8-12 x 5-8 microns, elliptic, minutely roughened, with a prominent snout-like germ pore, (Arora), (Bessette(2) lists them as smooth, but Smith explains the smooth and roughened descriptions as follows: "In most of the American collections a hyaline envelope covers the spore and gives a smooth outline in optical section - especially if the envelope is pigmented slightly. This envelope does not always revive well when ammonia is used as a mounting medium and under these circumstances the spore indeed does appear verrucose in the usual meaning of the term.")
Spore deposit: blackish-brown (Smith, Arora), dark purple-brown to blackish brown (Miller, who says it is also known as Psathyrella lacrymabunda (Bull.: Fr.) Pat.)
Habitat / Range
scattered, gregarious to cespitose [in tufts] "on rich moist humus or soil, on compost heaps, very old sawdust piles, or areas rich in organic material", (Smith), single or in groups or small clusters "in grassy places, roadsides, around sawdust and compost piles, on gravelly ground, or sometimes in the woods", (Arora), spring, summer, and fall, (Miller, who says it is also known as Psathyrella lacrymabunda (Bull.: Fr.) Pat.)
Similar Species
Lacrymaria lacrymabunda has smooth spores as opposed to minutely roughened for L. velutina (according to Smith(5)) but L. velutina is often listed as a synonym of L. lacrymabunda - the roughening may be difficult to see (see MICROSCOPIC).
