This little species goes from a yellow 'egg on a stick'
via a pink parasol stage to a dark brown mushroom in little more than a
day. It is commonly known as the Egg Yolk Fungus.
Cap |
1 to 4 cm in diameter at maturity, the caps
are at first egg-shaped and chrome-yellow, soon expanding like a parasol
as they mature and rapidly greying from the margin. The surface is smooth
and viscid.
The cap flesh is very thin and easily splits from the edge.
|
Gills |
Adnate and pale yellow, the moderately spaced
gills become cinnamon coloured as the spores mature. |
Stipe |
2 to 4 mm in diameter, white with a yellow tint; slightly granular near the
apex and downy as the base. The stem, which has no ring, is hollow and very
fragile. |
Spore print |
Cinnamon to rust brown. |
Odour/taste |
Not distinctive. |
Habitat |
On rotting straw and recently manured
grassland; within two days of rain, but then lasting little more than 24
hours.. |
Season |
June to October. |
Occurrence |
Fairly common. |
Similar species |
- Bolbitius titutans is pale straw-yellow and the whole of its
stem is pruinose.
|
|
Rotting hay and old cow pats are the main
habitats of this delicate little fungus. It fruits through most of the
year, often in full sunlight.
In the picture on the left, taken at midday, the caps of four young
fruit bodies are just beginning to expand... |
| |
...and in this picture, taken five hours later,
the caps have expanded fully, faded from yellow to white, and are now
beginning to shrivel. By the following day there was almost no evidence of
the fruit bodies left. |
| |
Only at the in-between stage are the marginal
striations clearly visible. On warm summer days the sticky surface of
young caps dries to a silky finish, and then the caps begin greying from
the margin. Pale brown spores fall from adnexed and almost free gills that
age
from straw-yellow through cinnamon to rusty-brown. |
| Commonly referred to as the Egg
Yolk Fungus, because of its beautiful chrome yellow appearance when young
and fresh, Bolbitius vittelinus is quite a common species but,
despite its attractive appearance, inedible. |
|
