Laccaria laccata - Deceiver

Taxonomy

Phylum: Basidiomycota

Class: Agaricomycetes

Order: Agaricales

Laccaria laccata is a very common woodland fungus, and where you find one you are likely to find many more. The colour changes quite significantly with age and depends on the weather.

Deceivers are edible, although it takes rather a lot of them to make a good meal. The stems are tough and inedible, and so only the caps are worth collecting.

Identification Guide

	Commonly (and most aptly) known as Deceiver, this very variable mushroom is not always easy to identify with certainty. The broad gills and fibrous hollowing stems are helpful characteristics, but cap size, shape and colour are very little help because they come in so many varieties. Often, however, you will find brown, tan and almost white caps together - as in the two groups illustrated here (darker caps in the distance).
	Cap 2 to 7cm in diameter, the caps are initially convex and become almost flat-topped at maturity. During wet weather young caps of Laccaria laccata are deep tan or reddish-brown (sometimes as the specimen seen here but often much more orange).
	During dry spells the caps and stems become much paler buff and eventually almost white. Very old specimens sometimes become funnel-shaped and very distorted.
	Gills The broad, deep gills are widely spaced and interspersed with shorter gills. Long before the cap fades to buff, the tan gills begin losing their colour. This is because they get covered in spores and - perhaps surprisingly when you see how dark the young gills are - the spores of this mushroom are white.
Stem	6 to 10mm in diameter and 5 to 10cm tall, the tough, fibrous stems are increasingly more 'hairy' towards the base.
Spores	White (in mass). Spores 7.5 to 11.5 x 7 to 9.5μm, globose to broadly ellipsoid, with spines up to 1.5μm tall.
Odour/taste	Not distinctive.
Habitat	Among leaf litter in all kinds of mixed woodland and on heaths.
Season	June to November.
Occurrence	Very common.
Similar species	Laccaria amethystina is a violet coloured member of the same genus; once it has dried out it becomes pale buff and virtually indistinguishable from Laccaria laccata.