Megacollybia platyphylla

This is a key to gilled mushrooms, that is, mushrooms having a definite cap with a fertile surface consisting of gills. The fruiting body usually also has a stem, although that may be lateral or absent (usually, then, the mushroom is growing from wood). You can use this key to identify mushrooms that you find.

Fruiting body containing fibers (usually in the stalk)

Spore print "light-colored": white or buff, sometimes tinged with pink or tan. Greenish and (except for the Russulales) yellow spore prints also go here
Stalk fibrous, not fracturing like a piece of chalk

None of the special features distinguishing the other white-spored genera:
Gills not free, as in the Lepiotas and Amanitas
Basidia not extra-long, as in the Hygrophoraceae
Spores smooth, except for Lentinellus

Growing on trees or dead wood, leaves, or sticks, or organic debris, often in moss

Shaped like a “normal mushroom”
Small and fragile to medium-sized, except for one large, grey-capped species

Megacollybia     Genus Cap distinctly greyish, often with sparse black fibrils Gills quite deep, almost distant White rhizomorphs attached to base of stalk Growth habit solitary to several No annulus

Links from Look-alikes LentinoLignoTrich     Subtribe All mushrooms with serrated gills go here If the stem is central and well-developed, then the fruiting body (even the cap) is large and extremely tough

Megacollybia platyphylla     (Persoon: Fries) Pouzar & Kotlaba

Here are the characters that distinguish this species from the others in its group. For its more general characters, see higher up on the page.
If there's just a few words or a microscopic feature here, a more thorough description can be found above.

Diagnosis

• On decaying hardwood
  
• Cap 1-6" across, stem up to 5" long

• Spores 7-9 x 5-7 µm, smooth, inamyloid

Comments

The cap can get so big that it falls apart under its own weight when you try to pick it
This is not a recommended edible. It is often bitter (or just foul-tasting), and even when not so it is not delicious. Some people have also gotten sick from it

3

This is the only species in this genus in the northern temperate zone. It is quite common on the east coast, west to Iowa, according to Lincoff (1987) , uncommon west of Ohio, according to A. E. Bessette, D. W. Fischer & A. R. Bessette (1997) . This (2001) has been a banner year for it in the midwest
When it gets older, the gill edges get very irregular, and I have mistaken it for a Lentinus in this condition


 

 

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