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cap shape

(pl. cap shapes)

Terms discussed: bluntly conical, campanulate, conical, convex, depressed, funnel-shaped, hemispherical, infundibuliform, ovate, ovoid, plane, umbillicate, umbo (pl. umbos), umbonate, upraised


See Also:
omphalioid
shape words




Image of Cortinarius husseyi from A. M. Hussey (1847 - 1855) Illustrations of British mycology
Cortinarius husseyi
A convex cap is smoothly rounded. Most young mushrooms have a convex cap.
A flat cap is said to be plane.


Image of Amanita V3 from A. M. Hussey (1847 - 1855) Illustrations of British mycology
Amanita V3
A cap that is so rounded as to resemble half of an egg, or half of a sphere, is said to be hemispherical. Here, the emerging buttons on the right are hemispherical.
The terms ovate and ovoid are sometimes used in this sense.

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Image of Marasmius oreades from Eugen Gramberg (1913) Pilze unserer Heimat
Marasmius oreades
An umbo is a softly curved bump in a flat cap. A cap with an umbo is said to be umbonate, as in the two larger mushrooms at the left. The two small mushrooms at the right have a central bump on a convex pileus, and are said to be campanulate, or bell-shaped. In this case, the bump is usually not considered a separate feature.

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Image of Leptonia porphyrophaea from A. M. Hussey (1847 - 1855) Illustrations of British mycology
Leptonia porphyrophaea

A cap which is triangular in profile is said to be conical. The two upper mushrooms in the picture have conical caps. The one in the lower right is campanulate or umbonate.


Image of Lepiota from Abbé Giacomo Bresadola (1927 - 1960) Iconographia mycologica
Lepiota
A cap with a rounded top but straight sides is sometimes also called campanulate, but I prefer to call it bluntly conical.
The two small mushrooms at the left, in the picture of Marasmius oreades above, are also bluntly conical.

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Image of Xeromphalina campanella from Eugen Gramberg (1913) Pilze unserer Heimat
Xeromphalina campanella
If the center of the cap is lower than the rest of it, the cap is said to be depressed. If the central depression is rather sudden and looks like a little hole, the cap is said to be umbillicate.


Image of Craterellus crispus from A. M. Hussey (1847 - 1855) Illustrations of British mycology
Craterellus crispus

Sometimes the central depression is so deep as to make the cap funnel-shaped. The technical term for this is infundibuliform, so I will just be using " funnel-shaped" in this website.

Umbo and umbillicate both come from words for a belly-button (note that umbo is an outie, while umbillicate is an innie), of which there are surprisingly many in mycology: see omphalinoid.

 

 


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