Conocybe milky white (Conocybe apala)
Systematics:
- Department: Basidiomycota (Basidiomycetes)
- Subdivision: Agaricomycotina (Agaricomycetes)
- Class: Agaricomycetes (Agaricomycetes)
- Subclass: Agaricomycetidae (Agaricomycetes)
- Order: Agaricales (Agaric or Lamellar)
- Family: Bolbitiaceae (Bolbitiaceae)
- Genus: Conocybe
- Species: Conocybe lactea (Milky white Conocybe)
Synonyms:
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Conocybe milk;
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Conocybe lactea;
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Conocybe albipes.
Milk conocybe (lat. Conocybe apala, [syn. Conocybe lactea, Conocybe albipes]) is a type of mushroom from the Bolbitiaceae family.
Hat: White or whitish, often yellow, 0.5 – 2.5 cm in diameter, at first closed, almost ovoid, then bell-shaped; it never fully unfolds, the edges of the cap are often quite uneven. The pulp is very thin and yellowish.
Blades: Loose, very frequent, narrow, grayish-cream at first, with age acquire a clay color.
Spore powder: Reddish brown.
Leg: Length up to 5 cm, thickness 1-2 mm, white, hollow, straight, easily split. The ring is missing.
Distribution: Milky-white conocybe grows all summer in grass, preferring irrigated places. The fruiting body decomposes very quickly, as in the similar Bolbitius vitellinus. A day, at most one and a half – and he is gone.
Similar species: Slightly similar to the golden bolbitus mentioned above, but it still has a bright yellow color. There are not as many small ephemeral mushrooms as it seems. It differs from dung beetles Conocyne lactea in the color of spore powder (in those it is black).
Edible: There is hardly any point in discussing this.
Notes: Conocybe, like Bolbitius, I would classify as magic mushrooms. Not to those magical ones who create magic inside a person (this is just a fairly understandable phenomenon), but to those who fill the ordinary human world with magic. I woke up in the morning, went out into the garden, and little white mushrooms were scattered everywhere. Moreover, they are somehow unobtrusively scattered, modestly, not like, say, shaggy dung beetles: another time you look, they are not. They do not require any reaction to their appearance. They came and went like clouds, the sun, or like little magical creatures. In fact, they are just as mysterious as all other mushrooms, but the secret lies in them, somehow easy and calm, which does not require any clues. There is, and thank God. No – no one will notice. Such are these Conocybe, which do not even have a Russian name.
