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Hygrocybe substrangulata (P.D. Orton) P.D. Orton & Watling - Waisted Waxcap
Phylum: Basidiomycota - Class: Agaricomycetes - Order: Agaricales - Family: Hygrophoraceae
Distribution - Taxonomic History - Etymology - Identification - Culinary Notes - Reference Sources

One of the smaller species of red waxcap fungi, Hygrocybe substrangulata is a rare to infrequent find in damp mossy grasslands and woodlands.
Reddish waxcaps are notoriously difficult to separate on macroscopic characters alone. The Waisted Waxcap is one very few members of the Hygrophoraceae whose caps are slightly scurfy rather than greasy, but microscopic study is necessary to identify it with certainty.
Distribution
The Waisted Waxcap is an uncommon to rare find in Britain and Ireland. This species has also been recorded in most countries in central and southern Europe.
Taxonomic history
When the British mycologist Peter Orton described this species in 1960, he gave it the name Hygrophorus subminiatus. The currently-accepted scientific name comes from a 1969 publication by Peter Orton and Roy Watling.
Synonyms of Hygrocybe substrangulata include Hygrophorus substrangulatus P.D. Orton, and Pseudohygrocybe substrangulata (P.D. Orton) Kovalenko
Etymology
The genus Hygrocybe is so named because fungi in this group are always very moist. Hygrocybe means 'watery head'. The specific epithet substrangulata refers to the shape of some of its fungal spores, whose centres are slightly constricted (= slightly strangulated) . The 'waist' seen on some of these spores is the reason for the common name Waisted Waxcap.
Identification guide
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Cap
The dry, slightly squamulose cap, typically 5 to 50 mm in diameter, is at first convex and then flattens with a slightly down-curved margin. sometimes with a slight central depression; initially orange-red or occasionally scarlet, the cap is sometimes translucently striate half-way to the margin. The cap flesh is reddish-orange but slightly paler than the surface. |
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Hyphal structure
Central region of the pileipellis is a trichoderm, while the margin is more often a cutis with some erect hyphal ends.
Cap context and gill trama comprise subregular cylindrical or slightly inflated cells up to 130 μm long and (in the specimens that we found in Wales) typically 6 to 10 μm across.
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Gills
Orange with paler edges, the gills are adnate or sometimes slightly decurrent; broad and fairly distant.
Note: H. substrangulata var. rhodophylla has bright red cap and stem, and intensely coloured (usually red, but occasionally orange or yellow) gills. |
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Stem
20 to 40 mm x 2 to 4 mm, cylindrical (occasionally compressed) or tapering slightly towards the base; orange, or yellow with an orange tinge; dry, smooth.
Basidia mostly 4-spored 40-65 x 8-10 μm.
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Spores
Ellipsoidal, some slightly constricted; smooth, 7-15.5 x 5-8.5 μm; inamyloid.
Spore print
White. |
Odour/taste |
Not distinctive. |
Habitat & Ecological role |
Wet mossy grassland in forests, peat bogs or (as the specimens featured here) damp mossy lower slopes of sand dunes,
Waxcaps have long been considered to be saprobic on the dead roots of grasses and other grassland plants, but it is now considered likely that there is some kind of mutual relationship between waxcaps and mosses. |
Season |
September to November in Britain and Ireland. |
Similar species |
Hygrocybe miniata is macroscopically very similar but has much smaller spores and tends to favour drier habitats.
Hygrocybe cantharellus has decurrent gills.
Hygrocybe coccinea has a much larger orange-red cap.
Hygrocybe conica turns black with age or when cut. |
Culinary Notes
The Waisted Waxcap is too small and insubstantial as well as too uncommon to be considered as a culinary collectible. It is, however, a feast for sore eyes.
Reference Sources
Fascinated by Fungi, 2nd Edition, Pat O'Reilly 2016, reprinted by Coch-y-bonddu Books in 2022.
Fungi of Northern Europe, Volume 1 - The Genus Hygrocybe, Edn. 2; David Boertmann, 2010.
Dictionary of the Fungi; Paul M. Kirk, Paul F. Cannon, David W. Minter and J. A. Stalpers; CABI, 2008
Taxonomic history and synonym information on these pages is drawn from many sources but in particular from the British Mycological Society's GB Checklist of Fungi.
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