Created: 2008-03-24 14:21:56

By: (CureCat)

Summary: .

I agree that observation 4251 is Panaeolina foenisecii. But these are Psathyrella, I am 100% certain. If not Psa. gracilis, then some species macroscopically similar. Panaeolina has more than one species residing in the genus, with habitat and macro descriptions that are pretty indistinguishable from Pan. foenisecii, though most people (myself included) call brown spored Panaeolus growing in grass Pan. foenisecii rather than Panaeolina sp. .
I feel the same way about calling these Psa. gracilis rather than Psathyrella sp. until there is good documentation of alternate species with such similar morphology. One thing to do would be to take many collections of Psa. gracilis and compare micro structures, and do sequencing to figure out if what we have is all one species, species cluster, or multiple distinct species. I’m not in a position right now where I can focus on such an endeavor (and it would be a chore to convince any sane mycologist to take on the project), but maybe some time in the future i will be able to put more focus on the group.