Fragile Dapperling
Leucocoprinus fragilissimus
This is another happy surprise I found under one of our big oak trees this week. It caught my attention as I was walking to the back side of our property to check on the chickens. My first thought was that it looked like a delicate little daisy. There were two of them growing a foot apart, right at the base of the tree. About a quarter of one of the caps, as you see in the bottom picture, had already broken off or been enjoyed by a critter.
Upon doing some research on this species I learned that, like the countless Parasola plicatilis I was seeing all over the place at the end of July - beginning of August, its incredibly fragile nature makes collecting them for study exceedingly difficult. The cap also dissolves and collapses within a few hours of expanding, so I felt lucky that I got to see them in such pristine shape.
Obviously, because I didn't want to destroy the sweet little things, I didn't pluck them to figure out what they were. I assumed their coloration, fragility and habitat were distinctive enough to identify them without collecting them. And I was right! :)
Cap: 1-5 cm across. Slighty convex to flat. Sometimes becoming concave with age. Small yellow bump/umbo in center. Deeply grooved. Whitish to pale yellow becoming darker at center.
Gills: Free. Whitish to pale yellow. Fairly distant.
Stem: 5-10 cm tall. Very slim (1-2 mm). Exceedingly fragile. Smooth. Bright yellow to white. Fragile white annulus present, which may dissolve in heat.
Flesh: Unsubstantial.
Odor: Non-distinctive.
Edibility: Unknown
Additional Notes: Looks like a white or pale yellow daisy, or kind of like a large flea bane.
Please remember that if edibility is marked "unknown," I don't condone or recommend using yourself as the guinea pig. Besides, this dude is so scrawny that it'd take 500 of them to fill you up, so it's just not worth it!
Kuo, M. (2015, May). Leucocoprinus fragilissimus. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/leucocoprinus_fragilissimus.html
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