Panaeolus sp.

I am so glad to encounter what I think is a Panaeolus sp. since these are quite rare to find her in Malta. I show you the micro tonight (spores, pileipellis, veil elements or pileocystidia (?) and cheilocystidia). Spore print charcoal black, spores with a pore and stipe does not break with a snap (so I went off from Psathyrella). The edges of the lamellae are white too, leaving Panaeolus as a good candidate. P. cingutulus was my first quick guess but let's be patient and build up slowly.

It is a nice mushroom. The spore print was so delicate and beautiful, formed even after 2 hrs of standing.

I decided to exclude Psathyrella because the stipe did not break with a snap - and saw the white edges on the lamella sides (not that strong to be honest). But I have not studied this collection in detail and I try today . The cheilos are very interesting !!! Yes P. cinctulus, sorry for the typo. I do my best to finish my ecological report and I come back with details.

Favouring yr point, yesterday 11pm while half asleep I was reading about the Panaeolus spp from Fungi d'Italia and thought the spores are too large and robust... so yeah genus must be reconsidered. To be continued my friend - THANK YOU!

Dear friends,

I have examined this fungus, and it is turning out to be another interesting species.

• The spores are dark reddish-brown, ovate-ellipsoid (convex in lateral view) with a well-detectable (but not highly distinct) central germ-pore. Spores measuring Me = 7.8 × 5 µm ; Qe = 1.5 Range: [6.9 [7.6-7.9] 8.6 × 4.5 [4.9 -5.1] 5.6 µm] N = 37
• The pileipellis is a Hymeniderm-epithelial layer of subspherical hyaline smooth-walled hyphae
• Above there is a pigmented layer where hyphae have thick encrusted walls. I did not get a good picture of this layer but some cells are cystoid, there are elongated hyphae. Yet the incrustations are evident.
• The cystidia are narrow utriform to utriform with a thick covering of crystals on the obtuse-rounded apex. 38-44 um long. It stains very strong in CongoRed.
• Cheilocystidia are present as a dense row on the gill edge giving the gill a white-edged appearance.
• Unfortunately, I have not yet tested for pleurocystidia.
• I have detected a clamp junction in the veil? (supracuticle layer)

Some basic analysis. If we assume this is a Psathyrella, using Melzer 2019 key, there are not much option with cystidia that are metulloid (crystal-bearing) and the best hit was P. pygmae

Panaeolus have some species that its cytsidia are metulloid, and they have been placed on an own genus - Copelandia ! I know this because in my research I surfed on this paper: - The neurotropic genus Copelandia (Basidiomycota) in western Paraná State, Brazil but the species featured are from South America... but hej, I am seeing some similarities with my findings?! Obviously, it is not any of those tropical species I don't know if I can get further help from the members about this.

I tested the spores with concentrated sulphuric acid. The spores did not bleach after 5 mins. I check after an hour.

I am pretty confused here, but at this point I would exclude Psathyrella (unless the spore bleach with time). Panaeoulus are known to have metulloid cystidia, so this is an extra plus for assigning this species with Panaeolus, yet many species have spore> 10um. The best fit is Panaeolus papilionaceus var. Parvisporus but I read that its cystidia are not metulloid. Maybe this should be sequenced? !!

I am back with this one and I got the result from ITS sequencing as Psathyrella panaeoloides. As the name suggests this Psathyrella look like a Panaeolus so it is a consolation for me for opting to be a Panaeolus. Schupfnudel you were right on suggesting Psathyrella!!! I was confused between the two but stipe was a bit flexible and the deposits on the cheilos were so much misleading (and the white edged lamellae too)!

Comparing with this excellent report:

Psathyrella-panaeoloidesDaD.pdf

My collection have those ' rectangular ' spores, in the right sizes and some comments make reference to cheilocystidia having deposits on the top. So we are good!