Chestnut Dapperling

Description

The chestnut dapperling is a very small mushroom: the cap is usually 1–4 cm across, russet-brown to red-brown and cracked into fine scales that reveal a white or cream underlay. The gills are white or cream and do not attach to the stem. The thin stem has a white, smooth top, and below the ring zone it is scaly and brownish; a true ring is usually absent.

It is a saprotroph and grows in deciduous and coniferous woods, most often from September to November, singly or in small groups. In Poland its distribution is poorly known.

It is a deadly poisonous species, containing amatoxins, and at the same time small and similar to many other dapperlings, which can be told apart only under a microscope. Do not pick any small mushrooms with a scaly cap and free, white gills. The poison cannot be removed in the kitchen.

Identification features

Cap

Small: diameter 1–4.5 cm (descriptions also give values up to 3 cm); at first convex, then flat with a blunt umbo. Surface orange-brown to red-brown, concentrically cracked into granular, fibrous scales with recurved tips, on a white or cream background. Margin paler and less scaly.

Hymenophore (underside of the cap)

Gills free (not attached to the stem), ventricose, crowded, about 3 mm wide, with smooth edges; colour from white to cream.

Stem

Height 4–6 cm (descriptions also give values up to 8 cm), thickness 1.8–3 mm, cylindrical, slightly widened towards the base, solid at first, then hollow. Usually no ring — only a ring zone at about 2/3 of the height. Above the zone the stem is smooth, white; below it scaly, light brown to brown, the scales arranged in a wreath-like pattern, in the colour of the cap. White mycelial cords grow from the base.

Flesh

White, smell similar to that of the stinking dapperling (Lepiota cristata); taste described as mild — it must never be tested; do not taste the flesh of this or any suspicious mushroom.

Spore print and spores

Spore print white. Spores thin-walled, of fairly irregular shape, with a large lateral spur, amyloid, 9.5–13 × 3.8–5.2 µm.

Habitat and distribution

Ecology. Saprotroph. Grows in deciduous and coniferous woods, on clayey and alkaline soils, but also acidic ones, on conifer needles; singly or in small groups.

Distribution. Widespread in Europe, North America and the temperate zones of Asia; also reported from India, Nepal, Thailand and Papua New Guinea. In Poland, 7 localities were known by 2003, distribution poorly known; the species does not appear on the Red List of 2006. Not legally protected. Sometimes described as not very common.

Fruiting. From September to November.

What can it be confused with?

• Lepiota brunneoincarnata (deadly dapperling) — Cap with a violet tinge, stem below the ring zonally scaly. A species also regarded as highly poisonous.
• Lepiota pseudohelveola (pale pink dapperling) — Has a membranous ring, no reddish tints on the cap.
• Lepiota boudieri (Boudier's dapperling) — Cap less scaly, unpleasant smell.
• Macrolepiota procera (parasol mushroom) — It is many times larger, with a movable ring and a snake-like pattern on the stem. Further 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 species was described by the French mycologist Lucien Quélet in 1881.
• The Polish name dates from 2003 (Władysław Wojewoda); until that year only 7 localities had been reported in Polish literature.
• The English common names are chestnut dapperling and petite parasol.