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Species Information
Summary: Features include hygrophanous, scarlet to pink, slightly lubricous cap, pink gills with white edge that fade to whitish overall, watery pink to orange stem that is pruinose or granular at first, white spore deposit and narrowly elliptic, inamyloid spores. Mycena adonis has been transferred to Atheniella as Atheniella adonis (Bull.: Fr.) Redhead, Moncalvo, Vilgalys, Desjardin, B.A. Perry, Index Fungorum 14:1. 2012. Maas Geesteranus includes in Mycena adonis three other descriptions included as separate by Smith: Mycena roseipallens Murrill, M. fusipes Murrill, and M. amabilissima (Peck) Saccardo, as well as M. roseocandida (Peck) Sacc. of eastern North America. M. amabiliissima has been transferred to Atheniella as Atheniella amabillissima (Peck) Redhead, Moncalvo, Vilgalys, Desjardin, B.A. Perry Index Fungorum 14: 1. 2012. Smith says that M. adonis becomes bright yellow as it fades as opposed to weak yellow or white for M. amabilissima whereas Maas Geesteranus regards M. adonis as fading without yellowish tints: it is not clear where the yellow fading species fits.
Atheniella adonis is found at least in WA, OR, and CA, (Smith), and Europe and Algeria, (Maas Geesteranus). Atheniella adonis is fairly common in the Pacific Northwest. It was reported from BC (as M. amabilissima) by Gamiet(1), and there are collections of A. adonis (as Mycena adonis) from BC at the University of British Columbia.
Cap: 0.6-2.2cm across, conic to bell-shaped, becoming flat-convex; "scarlet, orange-red, bright pink-salmon, incarnate or, more rarely, white", fading but without yellowish tints, especially toward margin; shallowly grooved or smooth, slightly lubricous when moist, little translucent-striate^, (Maas Geesteranus), 0.5-1.2(1.5)cm across, conic becoming broadly conic or narrowly bell-shaped; hygrophanous, "scarlet" becoming orange or yellowish orange before losing moisture, fading to "orange-buff"; sometimes moist, opaque or nearly so at first, (Smith, colors in quotation marks from Ridgway(1))
Flesh: thin to 0.1cm, colored as cap but paler^, (Maas Geesteranus), thin, fragile, colored as cap, (Smith)
Gills: ascending, adnate, decurrent with a tooth, 12-24 reaching stem, 0.1-0.25cm broad, becoming ribbed and interveined; pink fading to whitish, white edge, (Maas Geesteranus), "ascending-adnate or attached by a tooth, subdistant to close", 14-16 reaching stem, narrow, 2 or 3 tiers of subgills; yellowish or tinged incarnate at first, margin paler and colored as faces, (Smith)
Stem: 1.4-3.5cm x 0.05-0.2cm, equal, round in cross-section, fragile, straight but curved in lower part, hollow; watery pink to orange, more pronounced color at top, fading or becoming tinged yellowish, minutely puberulous [finely downy] becoming bald, sometimes granular to almost flocculose in upper part, base "covered with long, coarse, whitish fibrils", (Maas Geesteranus), 2-4cm x 0.1-0.2cm, equal, tubular, fragile; pale yellow becoming whitish, base often sordid yellow or brownish; pruinose at first, polished and bald when old, base hardly strigose, (Smith)
Odor: not distinctive (Maas Geesteranus, Smith)
Taste: not distinctive (Smith)
Microscopic spores: spores 6.3-10.8 x 3.6-7.2 microns, which includes 2-spored form 8.1-10.8 x 5.4-7.2 microns, and 4-spored form 6.3-8.1 x 3.6-4.5(5.4) microns, pip-shaped, inamyloid; pleurocystidia similar to cheilocystidia, cheilocystidia (36)45-70(95) x 8-13.5 microns narrowing to 2-3.5(4.5) microns, fusiform [spindle-shaped], long-stemmed to short-stemmed, (Maas Geesteranus), spores 6-7 x 3-3.5 microns, elliptic, inamyloid; basidia 4-spored, 20-22 x 6-7 microns, "pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia abundant and similar in shape and markings", (36)40-58 x (8)10-15 microns, "fusoid and usually with a long aciculate neck (which is branched in some), smooth (but when dried material is revived in KOH an amorphous substance apparently holds spores and debris around the neck or apex, making them appearing incrusted)", (Smith)
Spore deposit: white (Buczacki)
Habitat / Range
among grass, moss, on fallen twigs or decayed wood, under conifers or hardwoods, (Maas Geesteranus for Europe), scattered to gregarious on needle beds under spruce and hemlock in west coastal conifer forests, or in the higher mountains, not uncommon in spring and fall, (Smith), early summer to fall (Buczacki for Britain/Ireland)
Similar Species
Mycena acicula is smaller, with larger spores than the 4-spored form of A. adonis and different cystidia. Mycena monticola has no pleurocystidia. Mycena rosella has marginate gills. Smith''s key differentiates the other species included by Maas Geesteranus in Mycena adonis as follows: M. adonis, M. roseipallens, and M. fusipes fall in the first group that are "yellow, orange or flame scarlet". Mycena roseipallens (not uncommon in NY, MI, MO, and WA) has pleurocystidia absent or rare and usually occurring near the gill edge, while the other two have abundant conspicuous pleurocystidia. M. fusipes (found in WA by Murrill but not found at all by Smith) has obtuse cystidia instead of the pointed ones in M. adonis (the latter not uncommon in spring and fall, WA, OR, and CA). The second group are pink to coral red: M. amabilissima grows on beds of moss, particularly sphagnum, and on needle beds (he mentions that a form of Atheniella flavoalba (as Mycena flavoalba) with a pinkish disk keys out here as well), and M. roseocandida, given only for Michigan, grows on leaf mold under hardwoods, occasionally on bark of trees or on debris. The habitats for the other species separated by Smith are somewhat different as well. Smith says "on needle beds under spruce and hemlock" for M. adonis, "on debris of elm and ash, and on alder debris in Washington, particularly on the bark of partly decayed logs" for M. roseipallens, and "on the ground, probably on dead wood" for M. fusipes. Maas Geesteranus gives the habitat of A. adonis (as Mycena adonis) for Europe as "among grass and moss, on fallen twigs or decayed wood, in open dry and wet places, under deciduous and coniferous trees". See also SIMILAR section of Atheniella aurantiidisca and Mycena strobilinoidea.
