Species flashcards

Description

Cap: 4–10 cm across; convex when young, later flattening and often slightly umbonate. Dark brown, umber-brown to almost blackish, with velvety dark scales and radial wrinkles; the margin is often paler and floccose.

Gills: Free, crowded and ventricose. Whitish to pale pink when young, later flesh-pink; the edges are characteristically dark brown to blackish and floccose.

Stem: 3–8 cm tall and up to 1 cm thick, cylindrical and slightly thickening towards the base. Whitish, especially in the lower part covered with brown-black flocci or fibrous scales.

Flesh: White, thin and soft in the cap, tougher in the stem. The smell may be slightly musty or radish-like; taste unremarkable.

Spores: Spore print pink; spores broadly ellipsoid to nearly spherical, smooth, 6–7 × 4–5 µm.

Occurrence: A saprotrophic species fruiting from summer to autumn, singly or in small groups, on large decaying stumps and logs of broadleaf trees, often with other Pluteus species.

Edibility: Inedible. The species is protected in Hungary, where collecting it is prohibited.

Lookalikes: Similar to the fleecy shield and other dark-capped Pluteus species. Its dark-floccose gill edge, velvety-scaly cap and dark-scaly stem are distinctive.

Note: The Latin pluteus originally denoted a movable protective structure or wooden screen used in ancient warfare. In fungi, it refers to the cap arching above the stem like a shield or roof. Umbrosus derives from umbra, shade, referring to the dark brown to nearly black cap and dark gill edges.

Species description: First described by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon and transferred to Pluteus by Paul Kummer in 1871.

Taxonomy

1. PhylumBasidiomycota
2. ClassAgaricomycetes
3. OrderAgaricales
4. FamilyPluteaceae
5. GenusPluteus

• Species: Pluteus umbrosus
• Synonym: Agaricus umbrosus
• Authority: Christiaan Hendrik Persoon and Paul Kummer (1871)
• English name: Velvet shield
• Ecological status: saprotrophic
• Edibility: inedible
• Protection status: protected in Hungary