|
The family Strophariaceae (the Pholiota, Psilocybe and Stropharia genera) are brown-gilled mushrooms with many characteristics similar to those
of the Cortinariales.
Another family with some Cortinarial characteristics, the Bolbitiaceae (which
contains the Bolbitius, Agrocybe and Conocybe genera), is also included in this section.
The family Strophariaceae comprises some 160 or so species in Europe
and they all have brown or dark brown spores. The main genera are Hypholoma,
Pholiota, Psilocybe and Stropharia. With very few exceptions the
fungi of this family are inedible and some are poisonous or at least
hallucinogenic - notably Psilocybe semilanceata, one of the so-called Magic Mushrooms. When young, many of the fungi in this family have cortinas -
cobweb-like veils covering the gills.
Also in this section we have included
fungi from the family Bolbitiaceae. There are some 120 members of the Bolbitiaceae recorded in Europe. The genera Agrocybe, Bolbitius and Conocybe fall within this grouping and contain mostly inedible species. All have brown
spores.
There is a lot more information about members of
the families Bolbitiaceae and Strophariaceae on the First Nature CD-ROM Guide to Fungi. Using much larger, high-quality pictures (because of the extra storage
space available and the much higher speed of access to large picture files
on CD), the guide shows hundreds of beautiful fungi
at various stages of development. |
