Species flashcards

Description

Cap: 3-10 cm in diameter; conical, then spreading, with a characteristic, blunt point in the center; light or dark gray, often purplish or brownish with age; surface silky shiny, smooth when young, then radially, innately fibrous, finally slightly scaly, sticky when wet.

Gills: Curved before the stem, then tooth-adnate; whitish, slightly pinkish tinged, then grayish, their edges black-dotted, serrated.

Stem: 5-10 cm long, 1-1.5 cm thick; cylindrical; whitish, grayish, fibrous.

Flesh: Thin, quite hard; whitish; earthy smell, bitter, then peppery taste.

Spore: White; 6.5-7.5 x 5-6.5 μm; ellipsoid, smooth.

Occurrence: From September to December; on acidic soil, under beech, rare mushroom species in Hungary.

Edibility: Poisonous, causes gastrointestinal problems.

Confusion: Similar to the poisonous peppery knight, but its cap is sharply pointed, innately fibrous, not scaly, and grows under spruce. The edible grey tricholoma has a matte cap, its gill edges are not blackish, its flesh is brittle, mild-tasting, and grows under two-needle pines. The edible silvery tricholoma's gills yellow with age, floury-smelling and -tasting, a deciduous forest species.

Note: The mushroom is protected, so leave it at its habitat. tricholoma means: hairy-edged (cap margin). The meaning of sciodes I could not find a reference for. The Latin scio means knowledge, but this does not fit the mushroom.

Species description: In 1801, Christiaan Hendrik Persoon described this mushroom scientifically and gave it the name Agaricus sciodes. The French naturalist Charles-Edouard Martin (1847-1937) in 1919 placed it in the current genus, so its accepted scientific name is Tricholoma sciodes.

Taxonomy

1. PhylumBasidiomycota
2. ClassAgaricomycetes
3. OrderAgaricales
4. FamilyTricholomataceae
5. GenusTricholoma

• Species: sciodes
• Described by: (Pers.) C.Martín (1871)
• Hungarian name: bükki pereszke
• Lifestyle: mycorrhizal
• Edibility: poisonous