© Steve Trudell
Danny’s DNA Discoveries – Macrocystidiaceae of the PNW (Tricholomatineae)
by Danny Miller
|
|
Danny’s DNA Discoveries – Macrocystidiaceae of the PNW (Tricholomatineae)
|
|
Introduction
Macrocystidia - the sushi mushroom, with a strong odor of fish and cucumber, at least one of which is often found in urban gardens. It also has a distinctive dark warm brown cap and stem with a pallid to orange-brown cap margin and warm brown gills. The spores are pinkish, but not as dark a pinkish brown like what we consider the pink spored mushrooms. The cap is hygrophanous and fades to tan. Under the microscope it has unique, giant, fat-bottomed pointed topped cystidia, from which it gets its genus name. abundant common uncommon rare - colour codes match my Pictorial Key and are my opinions and probably reflect my bias of living in W WA. Rare species may be locally common in certain places at certain times. |
|
Macrocystidia Macrocystidia cucumis EU group - We have discovered five genetic species here so far, all of which used to be lumped under the name M. cucumis. It is likely that the real thing is one of PNW01 through PNW04, as those are found in the EU too, although PNW01 and PNW02 are the most common sequences found there. Macrocystidia sp. 'PNW02' - known from a few BC collections. Macrocystidia sp. 'PNW03' - keyed out to var. leucospora microscopically and also to var. latifolia in another collection. It could be, but there is only one matching sequence from the EU (the type area), and it was from a soil sample. Macrocystidia sp. 'PNW04' - Interestingly, the two collections did not look like each other (see below, one was thinner fleshed in the cap and therefore quite striate). Macrocystidia sp. 'ID01' - found once in CA and once ID.
Macrocystidia sp. 'PNW01' © Yi-Min Wang, Macrocystidia sp. 'PNW03' © Jacob Kalichman and Mike Potts
Macrocystidia sp. 'PNW04' © Yi-Min Wang (2 images), macrocystidia © A and O Ceska |
