Brick cap

Description

The brick cap is a medium-sized mushroom with a cap 3–9 cm across, brick-red in the centre and yellow-orange at the margin, often with whitish-yellowish veil remnants on the margin. The gills are at first yellow, then olive-brown to chocolate, and the flesh is yellowish and slightly bitter.

It grows in clusters on rotting stumps and trunks, most often of deciduous trees, less often coniferous. In Poland it is very common.

It is sometimes confused with the conifer tuft, with the sulphur tuft, with honey fungi, and also with the deadly poisonous funeral bell, so mushrooms growing on wood must not be collected without certainty. If you are not certain of the species, do not collect or eat it.

Identification features

Cap

Diameter 3–9 cm, hemispherical when young, then arched, finally flat. Fleshy, smooth, bare, sticky in wet weather. Centre brick-red (sometimes with red-brown spots), margin yellow-orange. Near the margin fibrous-scaly, whitish-yellowish remnants of the veil, easily washed off by rain.

Hymenophore (underside of the cap)

Gills crowded, at first yellow, then olive-brown, chocolate or olive-black (greyish according to some descriptions); without the greenish tint typical of the sulphur tuft.

Stem

Cylindrical, fibrous, pale yellow at the top, brownish towards the base, with a ring (ring zone) that disappears early. Height and thickness inconsistent in descriptions: 2–4 cm and 1.5–3 mm, or up to 12 cm.

Flesh

Yellowish, slightly bitter, without smell (taste mild to slightly bitter according to some descriptions). Do not taste it; do not taste the flesh of this or any suspicious mushroom.

Spore print and spores

Spore print violet-brown. Spores smooth, ellipsoid, thin-walled, with a germ pore: 6–7.5 × 3–4 µm (descriptions give different ranges). Yellowish in KOH.

Habitat and distribution

Ecology. Saprotroph; usually grows in clusters on rotting stumps or trunks of deciduous trees, less often coniferous, sometimes also on deciduous litter.

Distribution. Europe, eastern North America, Japan; common in Central Europe, very common in Poland. Not legally protected in Poland.

Fruiting. In North America described from October to late autumn, even after frosts; no precise data for Poland.

What can it be confused with?

• Hypholoma capnoides (conifer tuft) — Gills poppy-blue, grows on coniferous wood.
• Hypholoma fasciculare (sulphur tuft) — Has no brick-coloured cap, gills dirty greenish, smaller and more bitter; poisonous.
• Galerina marginata (funeral bell) — Deadly poisonous; sometimes confused with it; detailed differences: no data.
• Armillaria mellea (honey fungus) and Kuehneromyces mutabilis (sheathed woodtuft) — Sometimes confused; detailed differences: no data.
• Pholiota mixta and species of the genus Pyrrhulomyces — Similar; detailed differences: no data.

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 Polish name was given in 1898 by Stanisław Chełchowski; earlier the species was described as, among others, łysiczka ceglasta and bedłka ceglasta.
• It was already described in 1774 by Jacob Christian Schäffer under the name Agaricus lateritius.
• The veil remnants at the cap margin are easily washed off by rain.