Leucocoprinus cepistipes (Sowerby) Pat. [as ‘cepaestipes’], J. Bot., Paris 3: 336 (1889)

Fruiting body medium. Pileus 3-6 cm in diameter, at first narrowly ovoid, campanulate then broadly convex to plano-convex when mature, white to greyish white, sometimes brownish when young, darker at the centre, powdery whitish scales and granules on entire surface, margin striate and splitting. Context thin, soft, white, odour mild. Lamellae free, crowded, white when young, then pale puff. Stipe 5-11×0.4-0.5cm, white at first, pale when mature, cylindrical, hollow, straight to curved, tapering towards the apex, annulated, Annulus white, membranous on the upper part, bulbous at the base, white, surface smooth. Basidiospores 7.8-10.5 × 5-7.2 µm, ellipsoid, hyaline, smooth, dextrinoid; spore print white. Basidia 23-28 × 8.5-12.8 µm, clavate with four sterigmata. Cheilocystidia 32-55 × 11-16 µm, clavate to mucronate, thin walled, smooth. Pleurocystidia not observed.

Specimens examined

India, Maharashtra, Kolhapur, Kagal, Hamidwada (16°25ʹ33ʺN-74°16ʹ58ʺE), on soil, scattered, 07.07.2020, Bornak, S. I. (Y20V11C7).

Remarks

Lc. cepistipes is distinguished by plush-like appearance with brown to buff disc, medium size, and tendency to develop in cespitose clusters; ellipsoid spores with clavate cheilocystidia. Lc. cepistipes is a light-colored, delicately scaly-powdery capped lepiotoid mushroom that usually fruits in gardens and parks, occasionally in humified waste etc., as well as native woodlands especially on well decomposed woody litter.

Lc. cepistipes can be confused with some other lepiotoid, coprinoid and agaricoid taxa. In terms of general morphology or habitat, it may be confused with Lc. brebissonii (Godey) Locq., Lc. birnbaumii (Corda) Singer, Lc. cretatus Locq. and Lc. lilacinogranulosus (Hennings) Locq. However, Lc. brebissonii grows freely in nature, having dark brown disc and squamules which grows usually in hardwood forests on leaf litter. Lc. cretatus differs with a snow-white and strongly floccose pileus and stipe while Lc. lilacinogranulosus differs with pink to lilac squamules and a concolorous disc. Likewise, Lc. birnbaumii is distinguished easily by its bell-shaped, striate, bright yellow, finely scaled crown, thin annulus that resembles a collar, and free, yellowish gills (Uzun and Kaya, 2018).

Occurrence and distribution of Lc. cepistipes is common and has a pantropical distribution viz. America (Mexico, Antilles, Martinique, Dominica, Antigua, Trinidad, Jamaica, and the Bahamas), Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Colombia. (Luna-Fontalvo, et al., 2021). In Maharashtra it has been previously reported from Mumbai and Pune (Senthilarasu, 2014), Aurangabad (Gore and Mali, 2021). This is a first report from the study area.

References:

Uzun, Y. and Kaya, A. (2018). Leucocoprinus cepistipes, A new coprinoid species record for Turkish macromycota. Süleyman Demirel University Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences 22(1): 60–63. https://doi.org/10.19113/sdufbed.31424

Luna-Fontalvo, J.A., Barrios, A., Abaunza, C., Ramírez-Roncallo, K. and Negritto, M.A. (2021). New records of Agaricaceae (Agaricales, Basidiomycota) from Colombia. Check List 17 (5): 1383–1393. https://doi.org/10.15560/17.5.1383

Senthilarasu, G. (2014). Diversity of agarics (gilled mushrooms) of Maharashtra, India. Current Research in Environmental & Applied Mycology, 4(1), 58–78, Doi 10.5943/cream/4/1/5 Gore, V.U. and Mali, V.P. (2021). Survey of Wood-Decaying Fungi from Vaijapur Taluka, Aurangabad (M.S.) India. Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci.10(9): 59-67. doi: https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2021.1009.007