Freckled Dapperling

Description

The freckled dapperling is a medium-sized gilled mushroom with a brown cap 5–12 cm across, covered with dark, pointed, spreading scales, which fall off in old specimens. The gills are white to cream and crowded, and there is a broad, hanging ring on the stem. Below the ring the stem is brownish and fibrous-scaly. The mushroom has an unpleasant, spicy smell.

It grows from August to October in deciduous and coniferous woods, parks, gardens and on wood chips, preferring shade and damp places. It often grows singly or in small groups.

It can be confused with other mushrooms of the parasol and dapperling group and with some amanitas. Do not pick it on the basis of the look of the cap alone: check whether there is a volva at the base of the stem, and if in doubt, leave the mushroom in the forest.

Identification features

Cap

Diameter 5–12 cm (descriptions also give values up to 10 cm); ovoid or bell-shaped to convex when young, later flatly spread out, concave in the centre in old specimens, fleshy. Colour brown to red-brown, darker in the centre. The surface is covered with blackish-brown, pointed, erect scales (pyramidal) on a paler background; in older fruiting bodies the scales fall off.

Hymenophore (underside of the cap)

Gills crowded, free, white to cream, forked at the ends (tendency to fork).

Stem

Height 4–8 cm (descriptions also give about 10 cm), thickness 0.7–1.5 cm; cylindrical, bulbously widened at the base, hard, solid at first, then hollow. Below the ring brown, fibrous to scaly (sparse brown scales). Ring broad, membranous or cottony, in mature specimens hanging and ragged, whitish on top, brownish underneath; sometimes attached to the cap margin.

Flesh

Whitish, soft in the cap, rather stringy in the stem. Smell pungent, unpleasant, "spicy" (compared to the common earthball Scleroderma citrinum, also to rubber or earth); taste sour. The taste must not be tested.

Spore print and spores

Spore print white. Spores long elliptic, smooth, weakly amyloid, 6.5–11 × 2–3.5 µm.

Habitat and distribution

Ecology. Terrestrial saprotroph. Grows in coniferous and deciduous woods, parks, thickets and gardens, also on wood chips and bark mulch; likes shady and damper places.

Distribution. Widespread in the Northern Hemisphere (Europe, Asia, North America); in the southern one only in the southern part of North America and in Australia (also reported from New Zealand and Japan). In Europe from common to rare. Not legally protected in Poland.

Fruiting. From August to October.

What can it be confused with?

• Echinoderma echinaceum (spiny dapperling) — The most similar; smaller, the stem below the ring covered with sharp scales.
• Echinoderma calcicola — Warts in the colour of the cap background, gills unforked and sparser.
• Echinoderma hystrix — Rare, darker, with dark gill edges.
• Macrolepiota procera (parasol mushroom) — Sometimes confused with it; the parasol is much larger and has a stem with a snake-like pattern. Further differences — no data.
• Species of the genus Amanita — There is a risk of confusion with amanitas, among which there are deadly poisonous species; amanitas have a volva at the base of the stem, while the freckled dapperling does not.

Never rely on a single feature. If you are not sure — do not pick it; show the mushroom to a qualified mushroom expert.

Interesting facts

• The species has more than 40 Latin synonyms and in its history was placed in the genera Agaricus, Amanita, Lepiota, Cystolepiota and Macrolepiota; the current genus Echinoderma was established by Marcel Bon in 1991.
• It was first described by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon in 1793 as Agaricus asper; the epithet asper means "rough" in Latin.
• The name "jeżoskórka ostrołuskowa" was proposed in 2015 and recommended by the Polish Mycological Society in 2021, after the species was moved to the genus Echinoderma.