Specimen #5 Agaric (Gilled) Fungus

Fig.1 Cluster of P. squarrosa on a decaying log

Name: Pholiota squarrosa -Scaly Pholiota
Family: Strophariaceae
Collection Date: October 4, 2011
Habitat: Growing on dead tree
Location: The West Woods in Russell, Ohio
Description: "The cap is 3-10 cm  broad, obtuse or convex becoming broadly bell-shaped to slightly
umbonate or plane; surface dry, pale tan to straw colored, buff, or pale yellow-brown, or in age darker
yellow-brown or sometimes greenish-yellow toward the margin; covered with a dense layer of upright or recurved, often darker brown) scales; margin incurved at first and often fringed copiously with veil remnants. Flesh pale yellowish. Odor is mild; garlic or onion-like. The gills are crowded" (Arora p. 390, 1986).
Collector: Brooke Warren
Key Used: Arora, D. (1986). Mushrooms Demystified. New York: Ten Speed Press.
Keying Steps:
Key to the Major Groups of Fleshy Fungi
1A. Spores produced on mother cells called basidia; fruiting body variously shaped (see pp. 52-54)...
Basidiomycotina, p. 57

Key to the Basidiomycetes
1A. Basidia and spores borne externally (on the exposed surfaces of gills, tubes, spines, branches, lobes, etc.); spores forcibly discharged at
maturity, i.e., a spore print often (but not always) obtainable; fruiting body with a cap and stalk, or clublike, or branched, or bracketlike, or
crustlike (without a stalk or sometimes without a cap) or lobed  or bloblike, etc. ... 2
2B. Not as above... Hymenomycetes, below

Key to the Hymenomycetes
1B. Not as above; pores and tubes absent... 3
3A. Underside of cap with radiating blades (gills)... Agaricales, below

Key to the Agaricales
1B. Not as above; spores forcibly discharged, hence a spore print obtainable if spores are being produced; gills exposed at maturity; common
and widespread... 2
2B. Spore print some other color (pinkish, salmon, yellow-brown, brown, rusty-orange, rusty brown, chocolate-brown, purplish, greenish, black,
etc.)... 10
10B. Spore print some shade of orange, brown, (including cinnamon-brown), green, purple, gray, or black... 16
16B. Not as above... 19
19A. Spore print purple-brown to purple-gray, purple-black, smoky-gray, black, chocolate-brown, or deep brown... 20
20B. Not as above; gills free to adnexed, adnate, or occasionally decurrent... 21
21B. Not as above... 22
22B. Not as above... 23
23B. Cap dull (some shade of brown, buff, gray, white, etc.)... 24
24B. Not as above... 25
25A. Cap usually viscid when moist (but may dry out!); fruiting body fragile or not fragile; cap cuticle typically filamentous (under microscope)...
Strophariaceae, p. 367

Key to the Strophariaceae
1A. Spore print dull to brown to cinnamon-brown or rusty-brown... Pholiota, p. 384

Key to Pholiota
1B. Not typically growing in ashes... 3
3B. Not as above ( if blue or greenish-blue when young then found in eastern North America)... 4
4A. Growing on wood (occasionally buried) or in wood chip mulch... 5
5B. Not as above... 6
6B. Not growing when the snow is melting, or if so then not as above... 7
7B. Not as above; color or habitat different or stalk thinner and/ or scalier... 8
8B. Not with above features... 9
9B. Not as above; if brightly colored then cap bald or with a few scattered fibrillose veil remnants
(one species tawny to whitish with erect or recurved scales)... 11
11B. Not with above features... 12
12A. Cap and stalk with prominent erect or recurved scales (which may be obliterated or flattened somewhat in age); stalk typically less than 1.5 cm thick... 13
13A. Cap never viscid; gills often (but not always) greenish-tinged in age; odor mild or garlicky;
growing on hardwoods (especially aspen) and conifers... P. squarrosa, p. 389

Fig.2 The brownish-red scales are the remnants of the universal veil

Fig. 3 Shows an example of the well hidden gills. Very compact and begin
turning a greenish color in old age (Kuo,2007).

Fig. 4 Shows the top of the stem bare while the rest of the stem appears scaley
like the rest of the fungus. The top part is bare since it was covered by the universal veil (Wikipedia, n.d.).

Links:
http://www.mushroomexpert.com/pholiota_squarrosa.html
http://www.treknature.com/gallery/Europe/France/photo71319.htm

Citations:
Kuo, M. (2007, November). Pholiota squarrosa. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/pholiota_squarrosa.html
 Pholiota squarrosa. Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pholiota_squarrosa.