Plants and animals of Pointfield

Crowded caps with a high domed profile, rounded distally around 40 x 40 mm in diameter/height. Colour initially a light grey tinged with brown but after a day or two turning more strongly brown and cracked. Cap covered in tiny appressed scales that are dark brown or black. Outline of cap typically irregular with indentations and edge thin, curling and deliquescing. Cap readily splitting radially. Gills initially off-white but quickly turning bluish grey then black and eventually dissolving to a black mush; densely crowded; free or just adnexed. Stem up to 90 mm in length and around 10 mm in diameter; white becoming browner towards the base and with brown/black scales along its entire length; no ring or differentiated lower part that is more scaly; tapered at base.

Spore print a dark brown to black. Spores 8.7-10.4 x 5.2-5.8 um (mean 9.5 x 5.5 um; n=16); ellipsoidal and smooth walled, with large germinal pore at one end. Dark olive brown in colour in KOH solution.  

Growing at base of Sycamore tree in Shedden Park; seen 13th May, 2022