Mycena corticola. Fr.
Figure 93.—Mycena corticola.
Corticola means dwelling on bark.
It is one of the smallest of the Mycenas, the pileus being about two to four lines across, thin, hemispherical, obtuse, becoming slightly umbilicate, deeply striate, glabrous or flocculosely pruinose, gray, tan, or brownish.
The gills are attached to the stem, with slight decurrent tooth, broad, rather ovate, pallid.
The stem, is short, slender, incurved, glabrous or minutely scurfy, somewhat paler than the pileus. The spores are elliptical, 5–6×3µ; cystidia obtusely fusiform, 50–60×8–10µ.
These plants are found on the bark of living trees. After rains I have seen the bark on the shade trees along the walks in Chillicothe, literally covered with these beautiful little plants. The plants in Figure 93 were taken from a maple tree the 4th of December. They are very close allied to M. hiemalis but can be distinguished by the broad, ovate gills bearing cystidia, and smaller spores.