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Species Information
Summary: Section Typicae (Smith), Section Filipedes (Maas Geesteranus). The main illustration from Michael Beug is identified as Mycena hudsoniana group, which along with M. stipata group comprise two of the commoner gray spring Mycenas in western Washington. Features of Mycena hudsoniana include 1) a hygrophanous, striate cap that is blackish on the disc and dark gray toward the margin, 2) pale smoke gray gills with pallid edges, 3) a cap-colored, fragile stem that is pruinose at first, 4) growth on needle beds under conifers, and 5) microscopic characters. The description is derived from Smith(1) except where noted.
Mycena hudsoniana has been found at least in WA and OR (Castellano). There are collections from BC at the University of British Columbia and Pacific Forestry Centre.
Cap: 2-5cm across, obtusely conic, expanding somewhat, usually broadly umbonate; hygrophanous, blackish on disc, dark gray toward margin, fading to "pale smoke-gray" [Ridgway(1) color]; bald and polished, moist, striate when wet, somewhat sulcate [grooved] when old or when faded
Flesh: thin, firm but fragile; colored as cap
Gills: "ascending-adnate or with a decurrent tooth (hooked), close to crowded", 25-30 reaching stem, narrow (scarcely 0.2cm); "pale smoke gray", edges pallid; edges even
Stem: 3-5cm x 0.15-0.3cm, "equal, hollow, very fragile"; colored as cap or slightly paler in upper part; "with a faint hoary bloom at first, soon becoming polished and watery"
Odor: "mild or faintly fragrant"
Taste: "not distinctive or only slightly subnauseous"
Microscopic spores: spores 8-11(12) x 5-6 microns from deposits, (but one cap from type collection had spores 7-10 x 5-7 microns), narrowly elliptic or pip-shaped, amyloid; basidia 4-spored but occasional 2-spored basidia in most caps; cheilocystidia and pleurocystidia fairly abundant, 32-50 x 15-40 microns, capitate [with a head] to abruptly clavate, the enlarged part very finely echinulate [with very fine spines], colorless, (Smith), spores 8.1-8.8 x 4.9-5.4 microns (possibly only immature ones seen), pip-shaped [elliptic], smooth, amyloid; basidia 4-spored, 22.5-25 x 7-8 microns, clavate, clamped; cheilocystidia of two kinds: 1) numerous, 21-45 x 8-22 microns, clavate, obpyriform to almost spherical, clamped, more or less covered with evenly spaced, straight, cylindric excrescences 1.0-3.5 x 0.8-1.4 microns, and 2) rather less numerous or infrequent to rare, "often irregularly shaped and covered with unevenly spaced, coarser, longer, and sometimes branched excrescences"; clamp connections present, (Maas Geesteranus)
Spore deposit: white
Habitat / Range
gregarious on needle beds under conifers (Smith), restricted to conifer forests and usually found on woody debris or duff near snow banks above 700m. elevation, April - July, (Castellano), spring species known to occur in May and June (Maas Geesteranus), spring, summer
Similar Species
Mycena atroalboides has cheilocystidia with mostly unevenly spaced, coarse, often curved, simple to branched excrescences, (as opposed to covered with mostly evenly spaced, cylindric, narrow excrescences for M. hudsoniana), and M. hudsoniana is larger, lacks cinnamon tints in cap margin when old, does not stain reddish when bruised or when old, and fruits in the spring. See also SIMILAR section of Mycena piceicola.
