Marginal cystidia: similar to facial cystidia but usually smaller.
General Information: This fungus which occurs from spring to autumn is recognised by the habitat, colour of the fruit-body and the spore-size. It is known in many books as Flammula carbonaria (Fries) Kummer, but the genus Flammula is no longer used for it refers to a flowering plant in the buttercup family.
P. highlandensis is the same fungus as that referred to as Pholiota carbonaria by European Mycologists, but this name cannot be used for it refers to an entirely different N. American species. ‘Highlandensis’, in fact, refers to the locality where the present fungus was first found in the United States of America. The true P. carbonaria A. H. Smith has only been found once in Europe and this only recently in the south of England. It differs in the reddish orange scales on the stem; indeed it is a much brighter fungus than the common charcoal Pholiota.
Tephrocybe anthracophila (Lasch) P. D. Orton
Cap: width 1-4 mm. Stem: width 1 mm; length 2-5 mm.
Description: [Plate 73].
Cap: blackish when wet, drying sooty brown, slightly depressed in the centre, smooth, and viscid.
Stem: sooty brown, tough and smooth.
Flesh: sooty brown.
Gills: whitish then grey, adnate and not very crowded.