Species flashcards

Description

Cap: 5–12 cm across; hemispherical when young, then flattening. Initially clay-grey or pale ochre, later brownish to rusty ochre. The surface is dry but sticky when wet; young fruit bodies are covered by a whitish universal veil, remnants of which may persist on the cap margin.

Gills: Decurrent with a tooth. Pale clay-coloured when young, later ochre to rusty brown.

Stem: 6–15 cm tall and 1–2.5 cm thick, slender, cylindrical and sometimes spindle-shaped. Whitish at first, becoming brownish ochre; abundant whitish, then ochre-brown veil remains split into girdles with age.

Flesh: Whitish to ochre, reddening to a varying extent when cut and becoming black in the same places after several hours. The smell is notably reminiscent of corn silk, later becoming musty and unpleasant; taste mild to bitterish.

Spores: Spore print rusty brown. Spores almond-shaped, densely and coarsely warty, 11–12.5 × 6.5–7 µm.

Occurrence: A mycorrhizal species of calcareous sandy soils, chiefly with poplars, especially white poplar. It occurs in lowland alluvial woodland, poplar stands and sandy steppe woodland; rare.

Edibility: Not edible. Protected in Hungary and therefore not to be collected.

Lookalikes: It may resemble the girdled webcap and the large webcap. Its association with poplar, reddening then blackening flesh, and large coarsely warty spores are important distinguishing features.

Note: Cortinarius refers to the cortina, the cobweb-like partial veil of young fruit bodies that joins the cap margin to the stem. The prefix para- indicates resemblance, while cephal- derives from the Greek word „kephalē”, meaning head.

Species description: Scientifically described by Gábor Bohus in 1976.

Taxonomy

1. PhylumBasidiomycota
2. ClassAgaricomycetes
3. OrderAgaricales
4. FamilyCortinariaceae
5. GenusCortinarius

• Species: Cortinarius paracephalixus
• Authority: Bohus (1976)
• English name: Poplar webcap
• Ecological status: mycorrhizal
• Edibility: not edible