Agrocybe pediades (Pers.: Fries) Fayod
Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Series 7, 9: 358. 1889.

Common Name: none

• Pileus

  Cap 0.8-3.0 cm broad, convex, expanding to plano-convex; margin at first slightly incurved, then decurved, nearly plane at maturity; surface smooth, sticky when moist, otherwise dry, pale tawny-brown, fading to buff-brown, almost cream in age; flesh thin, whitish to buff, unchanging; odor and taste farinaceous.

• Lamellae

  Gills adnate to adnexed, moderately broad, close, often continuing as lines on the stipe apex, cream-buff, becoming brown, sometimes tinged rusty-brown.

• Stipe

  Stipe 2-4 cm long, 1-2 mm thick, slender, straight to occasionally twisted, pliant, stuffed, equal or narrowed slightly at the base; surface dry, striate at the apex, elsewhere minutely fibrillose, pallid above, concolorous with the cap below; flesh pale-buff, stuffed tissue white; veil fibrillose, evanescent, leaving minute fragments on the immature cap.

• Spores

  Spores 11-14 x 7-8 µm, elliptical, smooth, with an apical pore; spore print dark brown.

• Habitat

  Scattered to gregarious in grass and in disturbed areas, e.g. along trails and in gardens; fruiting spring, summer and fall in watered areas, also common after the start of the winter rains.

• Edibility

  Edible, but too small and easily confused with other "LBMs" to be recommended.

• Comments

  This common inhabitant of grassy areas is characterized by a smooth (sticky when moist), buff-brown cap, brown spores, slender stipe, and a soon disappearing fibrillose veil. Look-alikes include Marasmius oreades with slightly distant, cream-colored gills and white spores, Stropharia coronilla, with purplish gills, purple-brown spores and a striate-edged annulus, and Panaeolus foenisecii, with a darker-brown cap, mottled dark gills and dark-brown spores. To confirm an identification, a microscope is needed to check the cuticle which is cellular and the spores which have an apical pore.

• Other Descriptions and Photos
  • Fred Stevens: Agrocybe pediades (CP)
  • Fred Stevens: Agrocybe pediades (CP)
  • Pilze, Pilze, Pilze: Agrocybe pediades (CP)
  • Arora (1986): p. 468 (D & P)
  • Breitenbach & Kränzlin (vol. 4): sp. 369 (D, I, & CP) [as Agrocybe semiorbicularis]
  • Jordan: p. 248 (D & CP)
  • Lincoff: p. 557 (D), plate 47 (CP)
  • Miller: sp. 223 (D)
  • Phillips: p. 196 (D & CP)

  (D=Description; I=Illustration; P=Photo; CP=Color Photo)