(vi) Heath and mountain fungi
(a) Moorland fungi
Marasmius androsaceus (Fries) Fries Horse-hair toadstool
Cap: width 5-15 mm. Stem: width 1 mm; length 30-60 mm.
Description: [Plate 77].
Cap: whitish to pale smoke-brown with a distinct wine-coloured tinge, membranous, flattened, or umbilicate and radially wrinkled.
Stem: thread-like, black or very dark brown, horny and usually springing from a black horse-hair-like mycelium.
Gills: whitish or dirty flesh-colour, adnate and crowded.
Flesh: white in the pileus and black in the stem.
Spore-print: white.
Spores: medium-sized, pip-shaped, not blueing in solutions containing iodine and measuring 7-9 × 3-4 µm in size.
Marginal cystidia: oval or ellipsoid, covered on the upper half with small pimple-like projections.
Facial cystidia: absent.
General Information: This fungus is common in troops from late summer until winter on dead and dying heather. It is also found in woods on leaves and twigs, particularly in plantations on conifer needles. It is easily recognised by the dark horse-hair-like stem which becomes bent and twisted on drying and the small, pinkish flesh-coloured cap. The word androsaceus means, and refers to, the stem which resembles the tough and wiry fronds of some of the red algae, such as Ahnfeldtia which is found around our sea-shores.
Illustrations: LH 115; NB 471; WD 244.
Omphalina ericetorum (Fries) M. Lange
Cap: width 5-20 mm. Stem: width 2 mm; length 10-20 mm.
Description:
Cap: variable in colour, straw-colour, cream-colour, bistre or grey, convex then flat or slightly depressed, radially grooved to the centre when moist; the margin is scalloped.
Stem: slender, similarly coloured to the cap, except for a brownish wine-coloured zone at the very apex, thickened upwards and smooth with a white and woolly base.
Gills: adnate to decurrent, white then cream-colour or yellowish, triangular in shape, very distant and often connected by veins.
Flesh: pale cream-colour.
Spore-print: white.
Spores: medium sized, hyaline under the microscope, broadly ellipsoid, or pip-shaped, not becoming bluish grey in solutions of iodine, 8-10 × 5 µm in size.
Marginal and facial cystidia: absent.
General Information: This fungus is common and often in large troops on peaty ground in woods as well as in moorland and mountain regions. In mountains O. ericetorum must be carefully distinguished from some of the truly mountain species of Omphalina dealt with on [p. 236]. O. wynniae (Berkeley & Broome) P. D. Orton is similar but pale lemon-yellow and is found on stumps of conifers. The word ericetorum refers to the habit of growing on heaths—Erica is the Latin name for heath. In many books this same fungus is called O. umbellifera which reflects the shape of the cap—umbrella shaped.
Illustrations: Hvass 116; LH 99; NB 857; WD 299.
Entoloma helodes (Fries) Kummer
Cap: width 25-75 mm. Stem: width 2-6 mm; length 25-55 mm.
Description:
Cap: finely or minutely velvety at centre, fibrillose or white silky as if frosted towards the margin, sepia or bistre, or mouse-grey, dull-coloured but with a hint of violaceous brown.
Stem: equal or slightly thickened at the apex, sometimes club-shaped, thickened at the base, greyish brown and pale cream-colour at the base.
Flesh: dark sepia in the cap, whitish in the stem and smelling strongly of meal.
Plate 77. Moorland fungi
![[Larger illustration]](#467779198995390083_illo233lg.png.id-4015630994316146786.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Gills: white or whitish at first then dirty pinkish brown, adnate and emarginate.
Spore-print: dull salmon-pink.
Spores: medium to long, angular, ellipsoid-oblong, slightly cinnamon-colour under the microscope and 9-12 × 7-8 µm in size.
Marginal cystidia: conspicuous, spindle or bottle-shaped and with subcapitate apex.
Facial cystidia: absent.
Hypholoma ericaeum (Fries) Kühner
Cap: width 15-30 mm. Stem: width 4-7 mm; length 50-100 mm.
Description:
Cap: fleshy, convex, later becoming flattened but remaining slightly umbonate at the centre, viscid at first, smooth and shining when dry, bright reddish to sand-colour or brown.
Stem: slender, yellow above, brown below, smooth and tough.
Gills: adnate or adnexed, purplish black with a whitish margin and fairly crowded.
Flesh: yellowish or red-brown in the stem.
Spore-print: purple-brown.
Spores: long, dark purple-brown, broadly ellipsoid and 12-15 × 7-9 µm in size.
Marginal cystidia: cylindrical or flask-shaped.
Facial cystidia: flask-shaped and filled with contents which become yellowish in solutions containing ammonia.
Clavaria argillacea (Persoon) Fries
Fruit-body: height 20-60 mm.
Description:
Fruit-body: club-shaped, blunt or rounded at the apex, cylindrical or compressed and often grooved, yellow ochraceous or buff.
Stem: distinct but short and yellowish.
Flesh: yellowish.
Spore-print: white.
Spores: medium-sized, hyaline under the microscope, smooth and 10-11 × 5-6 µm in size.
All these three species are typical of bare peaty soil, or moss covered peat amongst or around Heather or Ling (Calluna vulgaris) bushes.
Plate 78. Moorland, moss-cushion and mountain fungi
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(b) Mountain fungi and the so-called Basidiolichens
‘Basidiolichens.’
Omphalina ericetorum (Fries) M. Lange has already been described ([p. 232]): it grows on acidic soils and ascends into mountain areas where it frequently grows on algal scum which accumulates around Sphagnum plants.
Under these conditions the algal cells enter the base of the fungus and grow in the cavity of the stem and amongst those hyphae which constitute the base. This association, however, appears to be much closer in the two lichens Coriscium viride (Acharius) Vain and Botrydina vulgaris Meneghini which have long been classified as species of lichen of unknown affinity because no perfect state was known. Coriscium viride consists of blue-green overlapping plates or scales with narrow rounded often paler margins and which dry out greenish brownish grey. Botrydina vulgaris, in contrast, consists of dark green, gelatinous blobs drying out greenish brown.
Coriscium is now considered to be an association of an algae and a Basidiomycete, the latter being the agaric, Omphalina hudsoniana (Jennings) Bigelow, which resembles O. ericetorum but for the pinkish coloured stem. Botrydina may be a complex of several separate associations of an algae with different species of Omphalina. In the high mountains the association is with O. luteovitellina (Pilát & Nannfeldt) M. Lange a small uniformly bright yellow agaric, whilst in Sphagnum bogs it is with O. sphagnicola (Berkeley) Moser. Myxomphalia maura (Fries) Hora, a fungus typical of burnt ground, is also reported to take up this association in lowland woods and O. velutina (Quélet) Quélet appears to be capable of forming a loose relationship with algal cells also. This is a most interesting association and research work is still at an early stage. In the tropics and subtropical regions of the world, similar associations are found on rotten and decomposing trunks and stumps. In these examples the Basidiomycetes are frequently fairy-clubs, particularly species of Multiclavula (‘many small clubs’). A few species of this genus may be found also in North temperate woodlands. Botrydina also grows in Europe with Stereum fasciatum (Schw.) Fries and Athelia viride (Bres.) Parm. (see [p. 176]), and Odontia bicolor (Fries) Quélet is rarely collected without green algal cells buried in the thallus. Perhaps associations like this are much commoner than at first supposed. Probably the most remarkable of this group of poorly known organisms is Cora pavonia (Sw.) Fries which produces masses of interlocking fans; it is tropical and found in Brazil.
Mountain fungi: general remarks
There are several groups of mountain fungi, some mycorrhizal formers, some which prefer peaty soil and some which are associated with algae forming a loose relationship—the Basidiolichens. When the mountain top is covered with such dwarf willows as Salix herbacea or S. reticulata the leaves are cast each year, woody tissue develops above and below the ground; in fact all the processes taking place in our familiar woodlands are also taking place in these communities, the only difference being that the trees are dwarf. Indeed it looks quite odd to see normal sized agarics growing amongst the woody stalks of dwarf trees, the leaves of which are often one-tenth the size of the fruit-bodies, but this is what happens.
The mycorrhizal formers in these conditions include species of Russula (e.g. Russula alpina Möller & Schaeffer, R. xerampelina var. pascua Favre (see [p. 45])), Lactarius (e.g. Lactarius lacunarum Hora see [p. 50]), Cortinarius (e.g. C. anomalus (Fries) Fries see [p. 42]) and Amanita (e.g. Amanita nivalis Greville see [p. 56]). Subterranean fungi are also found, e.g. Elaphomyces see [p. 244], and, just as woodlands, valley bottoms have a saprophytic ground flora of toadstools so do the high mountain ‘woods’, and many familiar fungi of the lowerland areas are to be found there also, e.g. Mycena epipterygia (Fries) S. F. Gray, Mycena olivaceo-marginata (Massee) Massee (see [p. 88].)
The barer tops of the mountains, where large areas of moss are only to be found, support species of Hygrocybe, e.g. H. lilacina (Laestadius) Moser and H. subviolacea (Peck) P. D. Orton & Watling (see [p. 97]).
In the moist atmosphere on the hills in western Scotland, woodland-like floras containing familiar flowering plants are found on the mountain sides often much higher than in central Scotland. It is in such communities that typical woodland fungi are also to be found, e.g. Nolanea cetrata (Fries) Kummer (see [p. 101]).