These just popped up in the last couple days in the backyard. Located where my dog poops. northern NM, USA, riparian area
Not certain that this is coprinellus micaceus @allelopath I'm sure @Frog will know for sure. Love your dog BTW. Had three of this breed many years ago at different times.
Agree with Derek on Coprinellus micaceus. NB - A coprinoid specialist might prefer "Coprinellus sect. micaceae" instead as the coprinoids are a complex group with cryptic species :-)
Hmmm, I was hoping to find subspecies in Mushrooms Demystified, but I do not see Coprinellus in the species index. The copyright is 1986 though so maybe this is ancient history. Looking in North American Mushrooms (Miller/Miller) the only Coprinellus is C. disseminatus but I don't think that's a match. In Field Guide to Mushrooms of Western North America (Davis, Sommer, Menge) it lists similar species as Coprinopsis atramentaria and Coprinellus flocculosus but these don't match what I see. In Colorado Mushrooms (Wells/Mitchel) the description for Coprinus micaceus is accurate. This was published 1966 (!), so ... yeah. Mushrooms of Colorado (Evenson) shows a couple of Panaelous spp which are in the ball park but not it. It does list Coprinus micaceus which looks spot on. Not sure what the difference between Coprinus and Coprinellus is. For the genera Coprinellus, Coprinus, Coprinopis, I suppose these are coprophilic, which jives with the 3m x 3m area where my dog does his business. (His choice, no training, he just does this)
Excellent points @allelopath When using older-yet-still-valuable references, often you can look up the species name to find the old genus, as in this case as you found, it used to be Coprinus micaceus. Mushrooms Demystified will definitely have it. Finding subspecies or the list of species in section micaceae requires accessing a recent key and/or a recent paper delineating the members of that section ie with a tree diagram. Coprinus was divided into a set of genera (originally 4, now at least 7). I notice in my region that generally Coprinopsis on dung, Coprinellus on wood, and Coprinus on ground, but that is not going to hold true for all members of those genera. There's also Parasola, Tulosesus, Narcissea, Montagnea. Interesting critters!
Thanks for the background. Yeah I wonder about the scientific value of the old books, but I do enjoy paging through them. What has happened for me a couple times is that some old scientist guy from LANL (Los Alamos National Lab) passes away and his books make their way out and I pick them up. There's notes next to photos about when and where they saw them. Kinda cool.
A photo of the spores at 100x. My first attempt at focus stacking. Not much better than just one of the photos.
This species is impressive in its fecundity. One decent rain and it pops up in clumps in the same spots. And it is ephemeral as it is fecund. Another rain a couple days later melts the fruit like ice cubes in the New Mexico sun. Is there a cool word for a clump of mushrooms? E.g. analogous to a murder of crows. If not, let's make one up.
Hmmm, I was hoping for something more, as you say, poetic. A bouquet of mushrooms An emanation of mushrooms
That's so good, and who knew that was a real word? Apparently not Bing or Google; I found it used a few times, but not defined. Funny enough, I found one use in Dickens Online Journals, in a journal called Household Words. Volume VII - Page 595 (djo.org.uk) - that would be from 1853. And I found another site that shows the term as trademarked! About • @mycelium • Milkshake Website Builder (msha.ke).
Ha, I just made it up, using the root "myc-". Ok, everybody start using this in everyday conversation, e.g.: That's a lovely mycelation of mushrooms in your yard. (do Canadians say yard or garden?)
Even though it doesn't seem to be defined anywhere, it's been used, so I'm afraid you can't be credited with coming up with it, even if you think you did. :)
These things are relentless. 2 days with some rain and version 4.0 pops up. Is getting down to 50F at night which they don't seem to mind. I will be watching to see what their lower limit is.