General Information: The fibrillose scaly cap and stem and the almost black gills which frequently have liquid droplets at their edge separate this species from all other agarics and microscopically it can be easily recognised by the warted spores. ‘Velutina’ means velvety and refers to the texture of the cap-surface, of the young fruit-body. The genus name Lacrymaria refers to this peculiar, but certainly not unique, phenomenon, of exuding liquid from cells on the gill-edge. This has been compared with weeping and ‘lacrymans’ means weeping; the common name reflects this also—weeping widow (cf. [p. 154]).
This fungus has had a chequered history, for it is also known in some books as Hypholoma lacrymabunda (again meaning weeping) or H. velutina; the anatomy of the fungus, however, is quite different to Hypholoma (e.g. H. fasciculare [p. 64]). More recently it has found a place in Psathyrella, but it seems unsatisfactorily placed there because of the warty spores, black spore-print and fibrillose cap-surface; it warrants a separate genus, i.e., Lacrymaria. L. pyrotricha (Fries) Konrad & Maublanc is the only other British species of this genus but it has a bright orange cap colour; it is rare.
Illustrations: Hvass 180; LH 141; WD 863.
Lepista nuda (Fries) Cooke Wood blewits
Cap: width 70-100 mm. Stem: width 10-15 mm; length 70-100 mm.
Description: [Plate 42].
Cap: rounded then flattened or slightly depressed in the centre, smooth, bluish lilac, or violaceous when young but gradually with age becoming reddish-brown, with or without a flush of wine colour.
Stem: similarly coloured to the cap, equal, fleshy, elastic, fibrillose and streaky.
Gills: adnate with or without a decurrent tooth, crowded, lilac and easily separable from the cap-tissue by the fingers.
Flesh: bluish violaceous, but drying out dirty buff in the base of the stem.