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Species Information
Summary: Collybia cirrhata is distinguished by 1) small size, 2) a cap that is whitish becoming orange-brownish, 3) adnexed, crowded, white gills, 4) a whitish, thread-like stem with white mycelial threads at the base, and 5) growth on old mushrooms or sometimes on humus or well decayed wood.
Collybia cirrhata has been found at least in WA, ID, AK, NC, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK, (Hughes), and OR (Kauffman). It also occurs in CA (Desjardin) and there are collections from BC at University of British Columbia. It also occurs elsewhere in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Cap: 0.5-1cm across, initially convex then flat, slightly depressed, often with a very small central nipple; "white, reddish brown at center, or ochreous"; surface slightly silky, "often broken up concentrically when mature", slightly grooved, (Lincoff), 0.3-1.1cm across, convex with inrolled to incurved margin. becoming convex to flat or slightly depressed on disc, with downcurved to straight margin when old; subhygrophanous [somewhat hygrophanous], whitish, becoming grayish orange when watery or old, typically with faint pink flush when fresh; dry to moist, bald to somewhat canescent [hoary], translucent-striate at margin, (Halling), 0.2-1.2cm across, convex becoming flat, occasionally slightly depressed when mature, "often shallowly papillate to broad umbonate", margin either slightly inrolled or straight when mature; hygrophanous, white at margin, light warm tan at center, spotted at disc or fading uniformly to margin, becoming uniformly colored as it fades; dry-matte, opaque, slightly powdery, margin when moist is striatulate for one quarter to one half of the radius, grooved-undulate at edge, fraying when old, (Lennox)
Flesh: very meager; white, (Lincoff), very thin, whitish (Halling), thin, rather soft and fragile; colored as cap, (Lennox)
Gills: adnexed, crowded, unequal, separate from stem when mature; white, (Lincoff), adnate to slightly arcuate with tooth, close to subdistant, narrow to moderately broad, thin; whitish to pinkish buff, edges colored as faces; edges even, (Halling), arcuate, broadly adnate to slightly sinuate, narrow, about 0.1cm broad, thin, subdistant, 20 reach stem, 3 tiers of subgills; white or pallid, (Lennox)
Stem: 2.5-5cm long and about 0.1cm wide, whitish, rather filiform [thread-like], "supple with powdery surface that extends to the base in a tuft of interwoven fibrils", (Lincoff), 0.8-2.5cm long and 0.1(0.2)cm wide, equal to slightly widened downward, flexible but not fragile, becoming hollow; whitish to grayish orange; faintly pubescent in upper part, more so downward, nearly strigose toward base, often branched at base into rhizomorph-like strands or with plentiful white mycelium, (Halling), 1.2-2.5cm long and 0.1cm or less wide, equal, "outline often rather wavy, especially in the lower half, flexuous", solid; colored as disc or darker, pale warm buff, somewhat more reddish toward base when old; powdery-pubescent in upper part, becoming tomentose in lower part, "strigose with white, bristle-like rhizomorphs near the substratum", (Lennox)
Odor: none (Halling)
Taste: none (Halling), none or farinaceous (Lennox)
Microscopic spores: spores 4-5 microns long and about 2 microns wide, elliptic, smooth, (Lincoff), spores 4.8-6.4 x 2-2.8(3.5) microns, oboval to elliptic or slightly subcylindric in face view, elliptic to sublacrymoid [somewhat tear-shaped] in side view, smooth, inamyloid, acyanophilic; basidia 4-spored, 17.5-21 x 4.8-5.6 microns, clavate to subclavate, not siderophilic; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia absent; cap cuticle "a poorly differentiated layer of repent, radially arranged, mostly cylindric hyphae, often with a subgelatinous matrix above", cells 2.8-6.4 microns in diameter, "smooth, thin-walled, with scattered, short diverticulate branchlets"; clamp connections present in all tissues, (Halling), (5)5.5-7.5 x 2.5-3.5 microns, elliptic to cylindric, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, thin-walled, contents homogeneous, (Lennox)
Spore deposit: white (Lennox)
Habitat / Range
gregarious on remains of old mushrooms, in woods among dead leaves, summer and fall, (Lincoff), gregarious on blackened fungus remains, on rich humus, or well decayed wood in conifer and hardwood forests, July to September, occasionally November, (Halling), summer, fall
Similar Species
Collybia tuberosa and Collybia cookei are similar but Collybia cirrhata has white mycelial threads instead of sclerotia, and is found on humus as well as on old mushrooms. Rhodocybe olympiana (A.H. Sm.) Lennox, Mycotaxon 9(1): 137 (1979) has a cap that is gray to fuscous cap but gradually acquires reddish brown tones, a strong farinaceous odor and taste, spiny spores measuring 6-7 x 4.5 x 5 microns, and no cystidia. It was recombined from Collybia olympiana A.H. Sm., Contr. Univ. Mich. Herb. 5: 13 (1941) [1940], whose type was found in Washington State on a decayed fleshy fungus. The combination was tentative however and Smith considered it close to Collybia tylicolor and Collybia erosa, now placed in Sagaranella. As Lennox says, "This apparently very rare and very distinct species is difficult to place in any of the collybioid groups." Lennox studied two paratypes, a Smith collection from Washington and another from Ontario. She noted Smith had remarked that "the Ontario specimens were old when collected, and the dark reddish brown colors caused me to place them tentatively near Collybia nitellina". She went on to say, "this resemblance is still quite evident in those same specimens in the dried condition. It was this rather striking resemblance as well as the lack of a more suitable taxonomic position, that has prompted me to place this species tentatively in the genus Rhodocybe. It, nonetheless, is strikingly different from the other species of the genus in the ornamentation of its spores, and according to Smith the spore print is white." At least in the dried condition, the basidia are not carminophilous (siderophilic) like those of Saganarella tylicolor.
