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Species Information
Summary: The most distinctive feature is fruiting on moose and deer droppings; Other features include small size, a light gray cap without marginal remnants, dark gray gills, a pale ochraceous gray, pruinose stem that is brownish in its lower part, absent veil, and large spores.
Panaeolus alcis has been reported at least from BC (Paul Kroeger, pers. comm.), Moser(10) examined collections from SK and Sweden.
Cap: 0.4-1cm across, 0.3-0.9cm high, bell-shaped to conical, rarely hemispheric; pale gray, top sometimes with a slight brownish ochraceous hue, when very young also with an olivaceous tint; not markedly hygrophanous, matte and somewhat micaceous; margin slightly crenulate [scalloped] but not appendiculate even when young, (Moser(10)), non-hygrophanous (Hansen)
Flesh: pale gray in cap and upper part of stem, pale brownish downwards, (Moser(10))
Gills: ascendant, not very crowded (15-20 reaching stem), one subgill between neighboring pairs of gills; dark gray, then blackish mottled from spores, edge remaining paler grayish, (Moser(10))
Stem: 2-9cm x 0.05-0.15cm, hollow, pale ochraceous-gray, brownish toward base; entirely pruinose, especially pronounced in lower half, (Moser(10))
Veil: none (Moser(1))
Odor: none in particular (Moser(10))
Taste: none in particular (Moser(10))
Microscopic spores: spores (16.3)18-19(21) x (8)9.5-10.5(12) microns in face view, (8)9-9.5(10) microns in side view, more or less elliptic in face and side view with a distinct eccentric germ pore (2-4 microns wide), smooth, dark brown; basidia 4-spored or 2-spored, 25-28(30) x 13-15(16) microns, short and thick; pleurocystidia none, cheilocystidia covering gill edge, 25-35 x 4-6(7) microns, versiform, usually with inflated base, and +/- long neck, sometimes apex slightly subcapitate; cap cuticle cellular, cells (15)20(25) microns wide, rounded to elliptic, with dispersed pileocystidia, mostly +/- bottle-shaped, often with brown wall; stem with fascicles of colorless hairs or bottle-shaped caulocystidia, shape and size depending on age; with clamp connections, (Moser(10)), spores 16-18(19) x 7-9 microns, (Moser(1)), spores 18-19 x 9.5-10.5 microns, elliptic, smooth, with eccentric pore, dark brown, (Hansen)
Habitat / Range
usually on moose droppings (40 collections), rarely on droppings of reindeer (caribou) or roedeer (1 collection each), (Moser(10))
Similar Species
Members of P. campanulatus group are similar, especially P. sphinctrinus var. minor (which occasionally also occurs on moose dung), but P. sphinctrinus var. minor is larger and has an appendiculate white veil, and spores measure 14.5-17 x 9.5-11.5 x (7)8-9.5(10) microns with the width and thickness of the spore distinctly different, the shape lemon-shaped, sometimes nearly hexagonal in face view and elliptic in side view, (Moser(10)).
