Plants and animals of Pointfield

Small, orange-capped mushroom; cap to 15 mm in diameter; slighlty pinkish orange in colour with a waxy sheen when fresh; low domed in profile; margin with obvious traces of white veil attached around the edge; with age cap turns a straw colour. Gills sinuate and in broad contact with the stem; flesh-coloured and moderately dense only, arranged in three cycles; unbranched; edge white and slightly irregular. Stem up to 3 cm in length and 1.4 mm in diameter; hollow; pale with abundant white squamules along its length; no ring.

Spore print orange-brown. Spores ellipsoidal and smooth with large terminal germ pore; (7.3-8.5 x 4.0-4.6 um – mean 7.8 x 4.2 um n = 18) light orange brown in colour; not staining with Metzers and unaffected by KOH. Basidia 4-spored. Cheilocystidea common; two forms, large and small domed to bulbous forms some with a distal point, and small cylindrical to lageniform forms.

In poor soil near silver birch trees.