Fungi -- Great Britain -- Identification; Mushrooms -- Identification
_Illustrations_: F 12^{b}; Hvass 95; LH 77; NB 33²; WD 33³.
[Illustration: Plate 26. Fleshy fungi: Spores white and borne on thick,
waxy gills]
~Hygrocybe psittacina~ (Fries) Wunsche
Parrot hygrophorus
_Cap_: width 12-25 mm. _Stem_: width 3-8 mm; length 30-60 mm.
_Description_:
Cap: very slimy with colourless sticky fluid, deep bluish green when
fresh, but becoming more and more ochraceous-orange with age or
completely fading out to a yellow ochre, bell-shaped at first then
expanded except for central umbo.
Stem: like the cap very slimy, apple-green or bluish green throughout
but becoming ochraceous like the cap except at the apex which is
persistently green.
Gills: adnate yellow or apricot-coloured, greenish towards their base,
broad, distant and rather tough.
Flesh: whitish, tinged green in the cap and yellow or apricot-colour
in the stem.
Spore-print: white.
Spores: medium-sized, hyaline, ellipsoid, not blue-grey in solutions
containing iodine and 8-9 × 4-5 µm in size.
Marginal and facial cystidia: absent.
_Habitat_ & _Distribution_: Common in grassland and hill-pastures, but
it also occurs in copses and woodlands.
_General Information_: This fungus is easily recognised by the
distinctive colours, but it is rather deceptive for the cap and the
stem soon become faded; however, the green colouration persists at the
apex of the stem and it is by this that in the faded state the fungus
can still be identified. _H. laeta_ (Fries) Kummer fades to similar
colours but the cap is flesh-colour at first or sordid brown and the
gills are flesh-coloured or greyish; it prefers upland pastures and
heathland: its spores are smaller, being 5-7 × 4 µm.
_Illustrations_: F 12a; Hvass 92; LH 79; NB 33⁶; WD 34⁵.
General notes on Hygrophori
_Hygrophori_ are some of our most colourful groups of agarics, many are
brightly coloured with caps in reds, greens, yellows, oranges, etc., the
colour often accentuated by the usually slimy aspect. Traditionally the
genus _Hygrophorus_ has been split into three groups as follows:--
_Limacium_ with slimy cap, adnate to decurrent gills and slimy or
tacky stem which may also often be ornamented with dots, especially
towards the top.
_Camarophyllus_ with dry cap, smooth and fibrous stem and decurrent
gills.
_Hygrocybe_ with thin, fragile, sticky or moist cap, smooth fibrillose
stem and gills varying from free to decurrent.
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