Hygrophoraceae Gallery

The waxcaps and woodwaxes include some of our most spectacular gilled fungi, but they are sensitive to pollution and nutrients; as a result, they usually disappear if land is treated with agricultural or arboricultural chemicals. Waxcaps (Hygrocybe species) are grassland saprophytes, while the relatives the woodwaxes (Hygrophorus species) are ectomycorrhizal with trees and shrubs. Separating the various small red, orange or yellow waxcaps is notoriously difficult, and many of them cannot be identified with certainty without resorting to microscopic analysis.

Hygrocybe acutoconica	Hygrocybe calyptriformis	Hygrocybe chrolophana	Hygrocybe coccinea	Hygrocybe conica	Hygrocybe conicoides
Hygrocybe irrigata	Hygrocybe laeta	Hygrocybe miniata	Hygrocybe pratensis	Hygrocybe psittacina	Hygrocybe punicea
Hygrocybe quieta	Hygrocybe cantharellus	Hygrocybe reidii	Hygrocybe spadicea	Hygrocybe splendidissima	Hygrocybe virginea
Hygrophorus eburneus	Hygrophorus hypothejus

The family Hygrophoraceae includes many strikingly beautiful mushrooms. Some of the Hygrocybe fungi were previously included in the genera Hygrophorus and Camarophyllus. You may come across field guides in which the waxcaps and woodwaxes are included in the Tricholomataceae rather than being accorder family status on their own.

The fungi in this group are generally referred to as the waxcap family, and among them are some rare species that should not be picked. In fact most species in this group are quite small, the majority are inedible and some of the rare ones (Hygrocybe calyptriformis, for example) are reported to be poisonous. The mushrooms in this group have greasy caps that generally start off conical and have thick, waxy gills. All produce white spore prints.

Hygrocybe
coccinea

The Colourful Waxcaps

Many of the species in this family are red or orange. Others are bright yellow, ivory, white, brown, green or black and some even change colour quite significantly as they age. The Parrot Waxcap (Hygrocybe psittacina), for example, has a cap that often starts off green or purple and turns yellow or orange. This variation in colours make identification that much harder, and so finding specimens at various stages of development is a great help.

There are some 150 European species recorded in the family Hygrophoraceae.

Hygrophoraceae Gallery

The Colourful Waxcaps

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