Specimen AB#10 (Shaggy)

This little one cheered me up on a dreary morning. I was walking to class actually worrying about this assignment and wondering if I was going to get enough specimens. Then all of a sudden I noticed a few of these shaggy little lads growing up beside the sidewalk, looking up at me as if to say "relax, we've got this."

Figure 1. Coprinus Comatus fresh from the sidewalk

Name: Coprinus Comatus
Family: Agaricaceae

Collection Date: 9/26/2011

Habitat: Growing in grass beside sidewalk

Location: Hiram College Campus

Description: “Cap 4-15 cm tall, cylindrical or columnar… white with a brown to pale cinnamon-brown or buff center, soon breaking up into shaggy white to brown scales (universal veil remnants)…flesh soft, white…stalk 5-20 cm long…cleanly separable from cap” (Arora, 1986).
Collector: Andrew Burns

Key Used: Arora. D., (1986) Mushrooms Demystified 2^nd Edition, Ten Speeds Press, New York, NY

Keying Steps:

Agaricales

1b. Spores forcibly discharged…2

2b. Spore print dark…10

10b. Spore print a darker shade, not pink/reddish…16

16b. Spore print not green or olive…19

19a. Spore print deep brown bordering on black…20

20b. Gills free…21

21a. Gills and/or cap turn to inky black mass at maturity…spore print black…p.341, Coprinaceae

Coprinaceae

1a. Mature gills (and often the cap) digesting themselves…either turning into an inky black fluid or withering away…p.342, Coprinus

Coprinus

1b. Growing on ground, wood chips, wood, or indoors…9

9a. Cap cylindrical…shaggy…entirely white or with a brown center and/or brownish scales…p.345, Coprinus Comatus


Correlating Links:
http://www.mushroomexpert.com/coprinus_comatus.html
http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/may2004.html