Facial cystidia: absent.
Habitat & Distribution: This fungus grows in ones and twos, more rarely in troops amongst grass.
General Information: This is one member of a whole complex group of ochraceous, brown, tawny or cinnamon-brown capped agarics which superficially appear to be the same, but on closer examination the expert can split them into several distinct species. The use of microscopic characters is essential and outside the scope of this book or the ordinary mushroom-picker’s manual. However, the closely related C. lactea (J. Lange) Métrod can be more easily distinguished for it has a white or cream-coloured cap and stem. It also has larger broadly ellipsoid spores, measuring 12-14 × 6-9 µm, but the same shaped cells on the gill-edge.
Illustrations: LH 153; NB 354; WD 682.
Plate 35. Fleshy fungi: Spores brown and borne on gills
![[Larger illustration]](#467779198995390083_illo117lg.png.id-1002169327576089794.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
(d) Fairy-ring formers
Many agarics grow in circles, but not all of them produce zones in the vegetation. It is the distinct zonation caused by the ‘fairy-ring champignon’ Marasmius oreades (Fries) Fries and related fungi which have given rise to the name of Fairy-ring and which resulted in the foundation of many folk tales.
A fairy-ring can be divided into four distinct zones, a central zone of fairly normally developed vegetation on the outside of which is a green, actively growing zone of grass; outside this is a zone composed of brown or dead vegetation. The outermost zone again appears to be far more lush than the normal grass in the vicinity and it is in this last zone that the fruit-bodies of the fungus causing the pattern appear.