Marasmius pulcherripes

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by Michael Kuo

This beautiful little mushroom has a pleated pink cap and a wiry black stem. It is very close in appearance to Marasmius siccus, but the latter is more orange or brown. In addition, Marasmius siccus has a tougher cap, longer spores, and a stem apex that is brownish orange or yellowish, rather than pinkish.

Marasmius pulcherripes often grows in conifer woods, though it is also found under hardwoods. This can make picking it a special challenge, since plantations of white pine and red pine are often gloriously blanketed with poison ivy, and crawling around on hands and knees to examine tiny mushrooms can be a very bad idea.

Marasmius pulcherripes is much too tiny to consider as an edible.

Description:

Ecology: Saprobic on litter under hardwoods or conifers; growing gregariously; summer and fall; apparently limited to eastern North America.

Cap: .5-2 cm; at first bell-shaped or convex, often with a central nipple; later broadly bell-shaped, convex, or nearly flat; pleated; smooth or minutely roughened; dry; pink or pinkish brown (occasionally brownish orange), fading with age but retaining a darker center.

Gills: Attached to the stem or free from it; rarely attached by means of a "collar"; distant or nearly so; white or pinkish.

Stem: 2-6 cm long; less than 1 mm thick; equal; dry; wiry; often curved; pale pinkish at the extreme apex, darkening downwards by degrees to a reddish brown or black base; smooth; basal mycelium white.

Flesh: Thin; insubstantial.

Taste: Mild or slightly bitter or radish-like; odor not distinctive.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 11-15 x 3-4 µ; smooth; more or less spindle-shaped; often with one end pointier than the other. Cystidia present on gill faces; dextrinoid broom cells present on gill edges. Pileipellis with broom cells.

REFERENCES: Peck, 1871. (Gilliam, 1976; Barron, 1999; McNeil, 2006.) Herb. Kuo 07300401.

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Cite this page as:

Kuo, M. (2004, November). Marasmius pulcherripes. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/marasmius_pulcherripes.html