Hygrocybe conica - Blackening Waxcap

The carmine beauty of these little waxcaps is but transient, as they soon turn black all over. 

Blackening Waxcaps can appear very quickly after rain in late summer and autumn.

This is one of very few waxcaps that are considered edible, although they are not highly rated and their small size makes them hardly worth collecting to eat.

Cap

4 to 7cm in diameter; varying from an initial light orange to orange-red, often paler at the margin.

The conical caps rarely open out fully and they soon turn black - at first in patches but eventually they blacken all over.

Even when blackened the caps of these fungi remain quite shiny. The surface is very slippery in wet weather.

Gills

The gills are at first a pale lemon yellow, becoming more orange and then blackening as the rest of the mushroom changes colour.

Stem

The cylindrical stem is 5 to 10mm in diameter and 4 to 10cm tall; it has no ring.

Initially yellow with a scarlet tinge near the cap but remaining much paler at the base; the sem is full, rather than hollow, and the flesh is initially white but quickly turns black when cut.

As the fruitbody matures, the whole stem blackens, usually from the top downwards.

Spore print

White.

Odour/taste

Not distinctive.

Habitat

On roadside verges, in churchyards and on meadows and other areas of closely cropped or mown grassland where artificial fertilisers are not spread.

Season

July to November.

Occurrence

Infrequent, but where they do occur these fungi are often to be seen in large trooping groups. 

Similar species

Hygrocybe punicea is similar in general appearance, but this species does not blacken.

Hygrocybe conicoides, the Dune Waxcap, has yellow-orange gills and blackens much more slowly and rarely all over.