Thank you for the micrography. This is what is needed to make sense of a collection. All the features agree well with Psathyrella bipellis and a Psathyrella at a minimum. Note the squat shape of the basidia — very typical in these and related Genera. My measurements of Psathyrella bipellis agree with these. What I will do now is try to find a similarly red specimen in the field. For future notes — record the odor. These species has a prominent fruity-unpleasant such.

You can find lots of pictures of both macro and micro features of P. conopilus here;
http://mushroomhobby.com/...

And P. bipellis
http://mushroomhobby.com/...

who knew that these LBJs could be such a lightening rod for controversy? ;)

and that is cool that we both found that same curious psath (the one that I at first thought might be a conocybe) that Erin remarked upon…I never saw your photo of it at the time!

They do look like the same species, whatever that sp. might be. At Erin’s name suggestion, I did look up photos of conopilus online…that’s a European sp., yah? The macro looks different but perhaps the micro would match…or maybe we need a good local name for this mushroom, too? sigh.

dessicata available to any psath lover who wants to go deeper…

Observation #20884 is P. bipellis.

Observation #34515 and Observation #34682 are definitely not P. bipellis, however they may both be the same species, and both maybe something like P. conopilus.

This is my favourite mushroom… I know it when I see it. I wish I had said something here sooner. This is a common colour variant of P. bipellis. Here is part of the description of the species I wrote for MO:
“Colour dark purple to purple-red when young, fading to light purple-pink when wet. Hygrophanous, fading to drab, pallid pink.”

Bolek, I think this is a good match microscopically, thank you for the definitive confirmation.

The first picture is very bad with over saturated colors and some problems with white balance. The other much closer to the reality, especially when viewed in full size (for some reason I can’t open the first and second picture to full size from MO). Pictures were done late afternoon and in dark spot. I try to make them better and set camera to “saturation enhanced” and it was too much. It was my mistake uploading this picture to MO. Sorry.
Color of the mushrooms was not as intense as on first picture, but still quite strong, and reason could be, that everything was saturated by water from heavy rain couple of hours earlier.
I posted this find to MO to complement Debbie’s post http://mushroomobserver.org/34515?search_seq=1369570 , which I think is the same species but younger mushroom, (so is in my post http://mushroomobserver.org/34682?search_seq=1369567 ).
I did some microscopic check and found, that spores are elliptical about 13-14×7-8 microns with a germ pore, basidia four spored about 32×13 microns, cystidia (I had messy slide and do not know which cystidia – probably pleurocystidia) about 68×20 (for the shape check picture attached).

I think I found this same mushroom
http://mushroomobserver.org/20884

still unidentified… really neatly colored mushroom, I would love to place a name on this.

As an aside, it might interest everybody that after Erin and Noah found Tubaria punicea on madrone on the UCSC Upper Campus in January, I found another red Tubaria on an ornamental cherry on lower campus. If we consider a horticultural tree (next to a parking lot, no less) as “ruderal” or disturbed habitat, we might call it T. vinicolor. So probably two red Tubaria species occur on the UCSC Campus.

here’s an excellant recent paper on the subject, with extensive photos and descriptions:

http://www.mycologia.org/cgi/reprint/99/4/569.pdf

I will be interested to see what this eventually turns out to be! So much for those IDs in hand…regardless of eventual Genus/species, very cool mushroom Bolek! Is it too much to hope for that you took a spore print?

Just showed it to Erin/CureCat — she thinks it is Psathyrella too. Perhaps, if it is indeed, I will learn something new. But I think it is not unreasonable to look it under — I have done already some micro work against a version of Ps. bipellis. Putting some facts together is better than an endless dance with words.

immediately thought of one of the red Tubaria.

I also would like to see a bit of microscopy, not because I doubt the identificaton per se, but simply because I have never seen P. bipellis so red. Usually more purple/gray.

L. ceres has a more evenly colored, brighter (nearly) cherry red cap that is smoother than these (viscid when wet), a more strongly contrasting white stipe with only scattered yellow or red blushes.

I am no psath expert, tho currently intigued by this group, but even I know that the common woodchip denizen Leratiomyces ceres is nuttin’ like this one.
A red tubaria is at least in the realm of the reasonable…and this collection is certainly worthy of confirmation microscopy.

I thought one of the red Tubaria when I first glanced at it.. I’d love to see some supporting evidence for the Psathyrella id.

And why not Leratiomyces ceres?

D.