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Go to the NZFungi website for more indepth information on Humidicutis multicolor. Humidicutis multicolor

Synonyms

Hygrophorus multicolor
Hygrocybe multicolor

Biostatus

Present in region - Indigenous. Non endemic

Images (click to enlarge)

 

Caption: Fig. 48 Humidicutis multicolor (Berk. & Br.) Horak. (I-N: ZT 1018): L. basidiomes. M. spores. N. basidia.

Caption: ZT1018
Owner: E. Horak: © Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 New Zealand
Caption: Watercolour
Owner: G.M. Taylor

Caption: Spores X 2000  1. Hygrophorus salmonipes 2; H. elsae;  3, H .julietae;  4, H.  variabilis;  5, H. lilaceo-lamelllatus; 6, H. muritaiensis;   7, H. keithgeorgei;   8, H. pseudococcineus; 9, H. rubro-carnosus; 10, H. miniceps; 11, H. procerus; 12, H. multic
 

Article: Stevenson, G. (1963) [1962]. The Agaricales of New Zealand: IV. Kew Bulletin 16(3): 373–384.
Description: Pileus 1.5-3.5 cm. diam., green to dark green, rarely blue, darker at centre, matt to finely fibrillose, campanulate to broadly hemispherical, becoming plane; flesh blue. Gills adnexed to free, or adnate with a decurrent tooth, moderately distant, green with yellow margins. Stipe 3-6 cm. X 3-6 mm., sky blue or greenish above, shading through yellow to orange at base, hollow, silky, smooth; flesh blue above, yellow to orange below. Spores 7-8 X 5-5.5 µm., ovoid, hyaline, print white. Basidia 35 X 6-7 µm., four spored.
Habitat: habitat: terrestrial under scrub and forest, Eastbourne, 4.6.1949; Wellington Botanic Garden, 26.5.1949 &  9.6.1949; Levin, 22.6.1958; all Stevenson.
Notes: Although the original description is rather meagre it gives these striking colour characteristics so that the writer refers her collection to this species. There is no specimen at Kew but there is a drawing showing a somewhat faded example. Spore dimensions were not given in the original description.

Article: Horak, E. (1971). A contribution towards the revision of the Agaricales (Fungi) from New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 9(3): 403-462 (http://www.rsnz.org/publish/abstracts.php).
Notes: Stevenson's description of this species is based on two different collections which we also have studied. Not only are the spore dimensions of the two collections widely different but we believe that neither of them can be identified with H. multicolor.

Article: Horak, E. (1990). Monograph of the New Zealand Hygrophoraceae (Agaricales). New Zealand Journal of Botany 28(3): 255-306 (http://www.rsnz.org/publish/abstracts.php).
Description: Pileus -45 mm, hemispherical, convex or umbonate-expanded; dark green to green-olive when young turning blue-green or lilac-green with age; dry, minutely fibrillose, silky, margin splitting in mature specimens, hygrophanous, membranaceous. - Lamellae 12-18 (1-3) adnate to emarginate, subdecurrent with short tooth, ventricose, up to 5 mm wide; olive-green at first changing to lilac or bluish, entire edges concolorous or orange. - Stipe 25-75 x 2-5 mm, cylindrical, equal or subattenuate towards base; pale green-blue-lilac at apex, brilliant orange towards and at base; dry, fibrillose, silky, hollow, fragile, single or caespitose. –Context blue in pileus, pale blue-green in upper portion of stipe, orange in base of stipe, brittle. – Odour and taste not distinctive. - Chemical reactions on pileus: KOH - yellow. Spores 5.5-7 x 4-5 um, ovoid. - Basidia 20-45 x 6-7 um, 4-spored, with medallion-like clamp connection at basal septum. - Cystidia absent. - Pileipellis a cutis of repent, cylindrical hyphae (25 um diam.), membrane not gelatinised, with yellow (KOH) plasmatic and encrusting pigment, subcutis composed of fusoid to ovoid cells; clamp connections absent on cuticular hyphae (Pl. 1, Fig. 8).
Habitat: ECOLOGY: Scattered; saprobic on soil among litter in broadleaved-conifer forests (dominated by Dacrydium cupressinum) or in Nothofagus fusca-Kunzea ericoides-Leptospermum scoparium forests, March-June.
Distribution: DISIRIBUTION: NZ (NA, W, WL). - South America (Argentina, Tierra del Fuego), cf. Horak (1979: 57) - Sri Lanka (type), cf. Pegler (1986: 52).
Notes: The original description of Humidicutis multicolor; is based upon specimens collected in Sri Lanka. According to Pegler (1986: 52) the type material of this mul6coloured agaric is lost and hence its taxonomic identity and interpretation remain unsettled.
In the present species concept the type of H multicolor is not considered a synonym of the sympatric Ceylonese Camarophyllus caesius (Berk & Br.) as suggested by Pegler (1986). The three New Zealand collections referred to H. multicolor are in complete agreement with material gathered and published under this name from Tierra del Fuego (Horak 1979: 57).