Mauve Parachute
Marasmius haematocephalus
Also called purple pinwheel, blood-red head marasmius
A jewel-like tropical parachute with a deeply pleated purple-red cap, pale distant gills and a shining black hair of a stem, scattered on fallen twigs and leaves.
Overview
Marasmius haematocephalus is a pantropical member of the parachute genus, instantly recognisable by the intense wine-purple to mauve colour of its tiny pleated cap. It belongs to the same section as the North American pinwheels, small species with wiry dark stems attached directly to litter.
The species fruits in scattered numbers on fallen twigs, petioles and leaves in humid forest, appearing within a day or two of heavy rain and vanishing almost as quickly. The colour fades with age and sun exposure, so the striking purple tones are best seen in young specimens in shade.
Alongside the type form, several colour variants have been described from different tropical regions, ranging from deep magenta and blood-red to pale lilac.
How to identify it
Cap
The cap is 5-15 mm across, convex to bell-shaped, dry and minutely velvety, and deeply pleated with radial grooves that follow the gills beneath. Colour is a rich purple-red, wine or mauve, sometimes almost blackish at the small central depression, fading toward lilac or pinkish as it dries.
Gills
Gills are white to pale pinkish, few in number and widely spaced, and are free or only narrowly attached to the stem. They are not fused into a collar around the stem apex.
Stipe
The stem is 2-6 cm long and hair-fine, wiry, smooth and shining, blackish over most of its length and paler only at the extreme apex, inserted directly into the twig or leaf without any basal disc of white mycelium.
Flesh and spore print
Flesh is minimal but tough and reviving after drying. The spore print is white, and the spores are long and narrowly club-shaped.
Where and when it grows
The Mauve Parachute grows on fallen twigs, bark fragments, leaf petioles and leaf blades in the litter of moist tropical and subtropical forest, and also turns up on woody garden mulch and plantation debris in warm regions.
It fruits during the wet season, or in summer and autumn in subtropical areas, and is recorded very widely: Central and South America, the Caribbean, tropical Africa, South and Southeast Asia, southern China, northern Australia and many Pacific islands.
Ecological role
Like its relatives, this is a litter saprotroph that decays the finer woody and leafy fractions of the forest floor. In warm, wet forests litter turnover is extremely fast, and small parachutes such as this fruit repeatedly through the season as the mycelium moves from one leaf or twig to the next.
The tough, wiry construction and marcescent flesh let the fruit body persist through brief dry spells between rain events, extending the period over which spores are released from a single flush.
Similar species
Marasmius pulcherripes of temperate North America is a close counterpart with a rose-pink to reddish-purple cap; it is generally paler and pinker and grows in conifer and hardwood litter rather than tropical forest. Marasmius siccus is the same size and shape but bright orange.
Marasmius rotula has a whitish cap and its gills join a distinct free collar around the stem apex, an easy separation. Marasmius purpureostriatus has a much paler ground colour with contrasting purple grooves and a longer, downy stem.