Cedarwood Waxcap
Cuphophyllus russocoriaceus
Also called cedarwood wax cap, cedar-scented waxcap, white waxcap
A small pure-white grassland waxcap with broadly decurrent gills and a distinctive scent of cedar pencil shavings.
Overview
The Cedarwood Waxcap is one of the smallest and most delicate members of the waxcap group, a set of brightly coloured, waxy-gilled agarics that fruit in old, undisturbed turf. It is now usually placed in the genus Cuphophyllus, which gathers the dull-coloured, decurrent-gilled waxcaps (white, buff, grey and lilac species) away from the scarlet and yellow Hygrocybe proper.
What makes this species memorable is not its colour but its smell. Fresh fruitbodies give off a warm, resinous, pencil-shaving scent often described as cedarwood or sandalwood, strongest when the flesh is crushed or when several caps are enclosed together for a minute or two. Among the several small white grassland waxcaps, this odour is the single most reliable field character.
Like other waxcaps, it is regarded as an indicator of long-established, nutrient-poor grassland. Its presence usually signals turf that has escaped ploughing and fertiliser for many decades, which is why waxcap surveyors record it carefully.
How to identify it
Cap
The cap is small, typically 1-3 cm across, opening from convex to almost flat and sometimes slightly depressed at the centre with age. The surface is pure white to faint ivory or cream, smooth, and moist to slightly greasy in damp weather rather than truly viscid. The margin is thin, often faintly wavy, and may become translucent-striate when saturated.
Gills
Gills are thick, waxy, widely spaced and conspicuously decurrent, running well down the stipe. They are white or the palest cream, matching the cap, with interveining between them in mature specimens. The waxy texture is obvious if a gill is rubbed between finger and thumb.
Stipe
The stipe is slender, 2-5 cm tall and only 2-5 mm thick, cylindrical or tapering downwards, white throughout, dry, smooth and without any ring or volva. It is often slightly curved where it emerges from moss or thatch.
Flesh and spore print
The flesh is white, thin and unchanging when cut, with no bruising reaction. The scent is the key feature: resinous and cedar-like, sometimes needing a moment in a closed container to develop. The spore print is white.
Where and when it grows
Cedarwood Waxcap grows in short, closely grazed or regularly mown grassland that has never been fertilised or reseeded: upland pasture, coastal cliff-top turf, fixed dunes, churchyards, lawns of old houses and traditional hay meadows. It favours mossy, thatch-free patches and often appears among other waxcaps, earthtongues and pinkgills in the same sward.
Fruiting runs from late summer through autumn and can persist into early winter in mild maritime districts. The species is widespread across northern and western Europe, with Britain and Ireland holding notable populations, and it is reported more sparsely from suitable grasslands elsewhere in the temperate northern hemisphere.
Ecological role
Waxcaps are no longer thought of as simple leaf-litter recyclers. Isotope work suggests that Cuphophyllus and Hygrocybe species live in an intimate, still incompletely understood association with grassland mosses and plant roots, drawing carbon in a way closer to a biotrophic partner than to a free-living decomposer. This dependence on an undisturbed root-and-moss layer explains why the fungus vanishes so quickly from ploughed or fertilised ground.
The mycelium is long-lived and perennial in the turf, producing fruitbodies only in seasons with sustained autumn moisture. Because colonies take decades to establish, a rich waxcap turf is effectively irreplaceable habitat, and Cedarwood Waxcap is used alongside other species as a scoring taxon in grassland quality assessments.
Similar species
The Snowy Waxcap (Cuphophyllus virgineus) is the closest match, sharing white colours and decurrent gills, but it is generally larger and stouter, with a more distinctly greasy cap, and it lacks the resinous cedar scent. Intermediate forms are frequent and separation often rests on odour and overall stature.
The Ivory Waxcap (Cuphophyllus niveus, treated by many authors as a form of C. virgineus) is likewise scentless. Small white Clitocybe species also have decurrent gills but their gills are thin, crowded and non-waxy, and the flesh is not translucent. White Mycena species can look superficially similar in moss but have adnate rather than decurrent gills and a much more fragile, cartilaginous stipe.