Pluteus leoninus

This attractive and distinctive mushroom can occasionally be found growing on dead wood in Europe and North Africa. The underside of the cap is typical of the genus Pluteus - the gills are pale, soon becoming pink when the spores ripen. But the upper surface is a bright tawny or olivaceous yellow. The species name leoninus (meaning leonine) refers to this cap colour.

Description

• The golden to olive-yellow convex cap is 3-7cm in diameter, is hygrophanous, and usually has a grooved edge. The darker central disc has a slight velvety tomentum.
• The gills are yellowish at first, then salmon pink (the colour of the spore powder).
• The stipe is up to about 7cm, often striate, being white to cream, and often darker near the base.
• The mushroom grows on stumps and wood debris of broad-leaved trees and sometimes of conifers.
• At the microscopic level, the filamentous cap cuticle is a trichoderm. The gills have scanty bladder-shaped pleurocystidia, and abundant fusiform cheilocystidia. The spores are smooth, almost globular, approx. 7×6μ.

References

• Meinhard Moser: Basidiomycetes II: Röhrlinge und Blätterpilze, Gustav Fischer Verlag Stuttgart (1978). English edition: translated by Simon Plant: Keys to Agarics and Boleti (Roger Phillips 1983)
• Régis Courtecuisse, Bernard Duhem : Guide des champignons de France et d'Europe (Delachaux & Niestlé, 1994-2000). ISBN 2-603-00953-2
• Régis Courtecuisse : "Mushrooms of Britain & Europe" (Harper Collins 1999). ISBN 0 00 220012 0
• Roger Phillips : "Mushrooms and other fungi of Great Britain & Europe" (Pan Books Ltd., London 1981).