Fruiting body medium. Pileus 30 – 45mm broad, campanulate to plano-convex with brown umbo, appressed, whitish to cream with orange brown to reddish brown concentric circles. Flesh white, thick towards centre, thin at the margin, odour pleasant. Lamellae free, crowded, whitish to cream coloured. Stipe 35-55 x 3-6 mm, cylindrical, hollow, enlarged towards the base, whitish, smooth, annulated. Annulus superior, white and membranous. Basidiospores 6.2-7.6 x 3-3.5μm, hyaline, smooth, bullet-shaped with an apiculus, dextrinoid. Basidia 19-25 x 5.8-7.3μm, hyaline, clavate, four-spored with a basal clamp. Cheilocystidia 25-40 x 9-13μm, hyaline, pyriform. Pleurocystidia not seen. Pileipellis 8-10μm, cylindrical to narrowly clavate, thick-walled, with clamps.
Specimens examined
India, Maharashtra, Kolhapur, Panhala, Kaurwadi, (16°44ʹ02ʺN-74°56ʹ12ʺE), on soil, in pair or alone, 05.08.2021, Bornak, S. I. (Y21V6C12)
Remarks
L. cristata, called as stinking dapperling or the stinking parasol, is an agaric macrofungi in the family Agaricaceae. It is a most common, pervasive species in the genus Lepiota. This species has widespread distribution and previously found in Europe, China, New Zealand, northern Asia and many parts of North America. L. cristata can be easily recognized by its bell-shaped, irregular cap with reddish brown scales with reddish-brown umbo. The stipe is flesh coloured with annulus. The lammellae are white which turn browning with age with mild odor (Jordan, 2015). Variations in the color of their caps, the shape of their stipes, or odor can be used to distinguish similar Lepiota species from L. cristata. Other species can only be reliably identified using microscopy. The species Lepiota cristata is inedible and slightly poisonous, so it should always be avoided (Ismail, et al., 2017). This species is reported from Karnataka (Pushpa and Purushothama, 2012), Nagaland (Ao, et al., 2016), Kerala (Farook, et al., 2013) and some parts of North East India (Roy, et al., 2022). Tembhurne and Nanir, (2017) reported this species from Solapur, Maharashtra, however, their report is erroneous. Hence, the present collection of L. cristata is the first report from Maharashtra state.
References:
Jordan, P. (2015). Field guide to edible mushrooms of Britainand Europe. London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Natural History
Ismail Yilmaz, Ilgaz Akata, Sinan Bakirci and Ertugrul Kaya (2017). Lepiota cristata does not contain amatoxins or phallotoxins, Toxin Reviews, DOI: 10.1080/15569543.2017.1337034
Pushpa, H. and Purushothama, K.B. (2012). Biodiversity of Mushrooms in and around Bangalore (Karnataka), India. American-Eurasian Journal of Agriculture and Environment Sciences, 12(6): 750-759.
Ao, T., Seb, J., Ajungla, T. and Deb, C.R. (2016). Diversity of Wild Mushrooms in Nagaland, India. Open Journal of Forestry, 6, 404-419. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojf.2016.65032
Farook, V.A., Khan, S.S. and Manimohan, P. (2013). A checklist of Agarics (gilled mushrooms) of Kerala State, India. Mycosphere 4(1), 97–131, Doi 10.5943 /mycosphere/4/1/6
Roy, N., Jha, D.K. and Dutta, A.K. (2022). A checklist of the macrofungi of North East India. Studies in Fungi 7:1 https://doi.org/10.48130/SIF-2022-0001
Roy, R.D., Kandagalla, S., Krishnappa, V., Abid, R., Honnenahally, K.M. and Krishnappa, M. (2022). Novel Insights into the Bioactive Metabolites of Macrocybe gigantea (Agaricomycetes), Using Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry Combined with Chemoinformatic Approaches. International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms. 24(3):51 – 64 Tembhurne, R.R. and Nanir, S.P. (2017). Diversity Of Fleshy Mushroom in Sangola Taluka, District-Solapur, Maharashtra (India). European Journal of Pharmaceutical And Medical Research. 4(9): 671-675
