Livid Pinkgill

Entoloma sinuatum, long known as E. lividum, is the biggest and most robust of the European pinkgills. It has the heavy build of a Tricholoma or a small Clitocybe, and only its pink spore print and angular spores reveal its true family.

Entoloma is a very large genus united by pink spore deposits and spores that are angular or nodulose in outline when viewed under a microscope. Most species are small, drab grassland or woodland fungi, so a specimen the size and weight of the Livid Pinkgill is immediately notable.

It fruits in broadleaf woodland, frequently in troops or arcs on heavy clay soils, and its combination of pale ivory-grey cap, sinuate gills that shift from cream-yellow to salmon, and a heavy farinaceous smell makes it a species worth learning well.

Cap

The cap is large for the genus, 6-18 cm across, at first convex with a strongly inrolled margin, later broadly flattened with a low umbo and an irregularly wavy, sometimes lobed edge. The surface is smooth, silky and slightly greasy in wet weather, coloured ivory, pale grey, grey-buff or faintly ochre, often with a slight metallic or leaden sheen and darker water-marked streaks.

Gills

Gills are sinuate (notched where they meet the stipe) and moderately crowded. They begin pale cream to yellowish, which is unusual for the genus, and only later flush salmon or dull pink as the spores mature. The edges remain even rather than serrated.

Stipe

The stipe is stout, 5-12 cm tall and 1-3 cm thick, solid, white to pale cream, silky-fibrillose to longitudinally striate, sometimes swollen at the base. There is no ring, no volva and no bulb with a rim.

Flesh and spore print

The flesh is thick, firm and white, unchanging or only slightly yellowing when cut. The smell is strongly farinaceous. The spore print is pink to salmon-pink, and the spores are angular in outline with five to seven sides, the key microscopic feature of the genus.

The Livid Pinkgill grows on the ground in broadleaf woodland and at woodland edges, favouring heavy calcareous clay soils. It is most often associated with oak, beech and hornbeam and also occurs in parkland, on wooded verges and in old hedgerows, sometimes forming large troops, rings or arcs.

Fruiting is from late summer through autumn, generally peaking in early autumn. The species is widespread across Europe and temperate Asia and is also reported from parts of North America, though it is local, being tied to particular soil types rather than occurring evenly through woodland.

Entoloma sinuatum is generally regarded as forming ectomycorrhizal or at least biotrophic associations with broadleaf trees, especially oak and beech, though the genus as a whole is nutritionally mixed and contains both saprotrophs and root-associated species. Its consistent appearance under the same trees year after year, and its clustering in arcs, supports a root-linked lifestyle.

The mycelium is perennial in the soil, producing large fruitbodies only in seasons with adequate late-summer rainfall. Where it establishes, it tends to dominate a patch of woodland floor, and the same rings can be recorded across many decades.

The Clouded Funnel (Clitocybe nebularis) shares a pale grey cap, stout stature and farinaceous smell, but its gills are decurrent, remain white to cream, and it gives a white to pale cream spore print. The St George's Mushroom (Calocybe gambosa) also smells strongly farinaceous and has crowded white gills, but it is a spring fungus of grassland and hedge banks with a white spore print.

Miller-type fungi such as Clitopilus prunulus share a pink spore print but are much smaller, with a matt, kid-leather cap surface and strongly decurrent gills. Tricholoma species can match the sinuate gill attachment and stature but keep white or grey gills and produce white spore prints, so a spore print on dark paper is the decisive test.