Strophariaceae (and relatives) Gallery

Stropharia semiglobata	Stropharia aeruginosa	Pholiota alnicola	Pholiota squarrosa	Kuehneromyces mutabilis
Hypholoma capnoides	Hypholoma fasciculare	Bolbitius vittelinus	Agrocybe praecox

The family Strophariaceae (the Pholiota 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. 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 this species and other 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.