Pearly Parachute
Marasmius wynneae
Also called mauve parachute, wynne's marasmius
A pale, silky-capped litter mushroom of beech woods, faintly washed with lilac-grey and growing in loose tufts from a white woolly base in the leaf mould.
Overview
Marasmius wynneae is among the larger and prettier European parachutes, a genus of tough, small litter agarics with white spore prints and the characteristic ability to revive after drying. It fruits in troops and small tufts in the deep leaf mould of broadleaved woodland, most typically under beech.
The species is recognised by an unusually pale cap for the genus, whitish to ivory or greyish, frequently with a soft lilac or mauve-grey flush at the centre or over the margin, which fades as the cap ages and dries. This colouring gives rise to both of its English names.
Unlike the hair-stemmed parachutes, it has a comparatively substantial two-toned stem anchored in a conspicuous white felt of mycelium that binds the surrounding leaves.
How to identify it
Cap
The cap is 1-4 cm across, convex then flattened and sometimes slightly umbonate, dry and silky to faintly downy, whitish to pale cream or greyish, with lilac to mauve-grey tints that are strongest in young material and fade to plain ivory with age. The margin may become slightly grooved or wavy.
Gills
Gills are whitish at first, often taking on grey-lilac tones, moderately distant, fairly broad, and narrowly attached to the stem.
Stipe
The stem is 3-6 cm long and 1-3 mm thick, tough and pliant, whitish or pale at the apex and darkening to reddish brown or dark brown toward the base, which is wrapped in a conspicuous white woolly mycelial felt that mats the surrounding leaves.
Flesh and spore print
The flesh is thin, white and tough, reviving after drying, and the spore print is white.
Where and when it grows
The Pearly Parachute is a leaf-litter species of broadleaved woodland, strongly associated with beech and also found under oak and other hardwoods. It prefers deep, undisturbed litter, often on calcareous or neutral soils, and typically fruits in loose troops or small clumps whose stem bases are joined by white mycelium.
It appears from late summer into late autumn and is widespread across temperate Europe, being commonest where mature beech woodland provides a thick and stable litter layer.
Ecological role
The fungus is a saprotroph of fallen leaves and fine litter. Its white basal mycelium spreads through the leaf layer, gluing leaves together into loose sheets and gradually bleaching and skeletonising them as cellulose is consumed.
Because the mycelium is perennial in the litter, the same patches of woodland floor tend to produce fruit bodies year after year, and the fungus forms part of the sequence of litter decomposers that turns beech leaf fall into humus over two to three seasons.
Similar species
Marasmius torquescens is a similar-sized litter parachute but has a russet or tawny brown cap and a velvety, dark two-toned stem. Mycetinis alliaceus occupies the same beech litter yet has a much longer, blackish velvety rooting stem and a strong garlic smell.
Gymnopus dryophilus can look superficially similar in pale specimens but has a smooth, hollow, cartilaginous yellowish stem without a woolly white base and much more crowded gills. Pale Mycena species are brittle rather than pliant and do not have the matted mycelial pad at the stem base.