Vermilion Waxcap

The Vermilion Waxcap is one of the smallest of the red waxcaps, its cap often no more than 1–2 cm across, glowing scarlet or vermilion among moss in short turf. Because of its size it is easy to miss, and easy to write off as a juvenile of a larger red species — but a hand lens settles it: the cap surface is finely scurfy or minutely scaly rather than smooth and glossy.

It is a true Hygrocybe, with the family's thick, soft, waxy, distant gills and white spore print. Within the genus it belongs to a group of small, dry-capped, scurfy red species that also includes H. helobia and H. cantharellus, and modern treatments recognise several closely related segregates that were once all filed under H. miniata.

It is also less restricted to ancient grassland than many of its relatives, appearing on heaths, acid banks, dune grassland and moss-rich lawns, which makes it one of the more widely encountered small red waxcaps.

Cap

Small, 1–3 cm across, convex then flattening and often slightly depressed at the centre, with a margin that may become wavy or shallowly striate when wet. The surface is dry and, under a lens, minutely scurfy, granular or covered with fine flattened scales, especially at the centre. Colour is bright scarlet to vermilion or orange-red, fading to orange or yellowish-orange from the margin inwards with age.

Gills

Thick, waxy, broad and well spaced, adnate and usually with a short decurrent tooth. They are orange to yellow-orange or pale scarlet, characteristically paler than the cap, and often yellowish at the edge.

Stipe

Slender, 2–5 cm tall and 2–5 mm thick, cylindrical, smooth, dry and hollow, coloured scarlet to orange like the cap but typically paler and often yellowish or whitish at the base. It carries no ring and no volva, and unlike the cap it is not scurfy.

Flesh and spore print

The flesh is thin, orange to reddish and does not change colour when cut or bruised. The spore print is white and the spores are smooth and ellipsoid; microscopy is sometimes needed to separate the closest segregates.

It grows in short, mossy, often acidic grassland: heathland margins, upland pasture, acid banks, sand dunes and dune slacks, cliff-top turf, woodland rides and moss-rich lawns and churchyards. It tolerates more acidic and marginally more disturbed ground than the rarer waxcaps and is frequently found among Polytrichum and other mosses.

The season is comparatively long, from mid-summer through to late autumn, with the main flush from August to October. The species is widespread across Europe and reported from North America, Asia and the southern hemisphere, although several of those records probably belong to related species in what is a taxonomically complex group.

Hygrocybe miniata forms a perennial mycelium in the upper soil and moss layer of grassland and heath rather than decomposing wood or coarse litter. As with the rest of the grassland waxcaps, evidence points to a biotrophic association with grassland plants or bryophytes, and the strong tendency of this species to fruit among mosses is consistent with that.

Fruiting follows summer and autumn rainfall, and small troops reappear in the same mossy patches season after season. Its slightly broader tolerance of acidic and heathy ground means it can persist at sites where more demanding waxcaps have been lost, though it too disappears from ground that is ploughed or fertilised.

Hygrocybe coccinea is larger with a smooth, slightly greasy scarlet cap and no scurf, and gills that are broadly adnate. Hygrocybe cantharellus has a similarly small scurfy red cap but is more funnel-shaped with deeply decurrent gills and a notably long slender stem. Hygrocybe helobia is very similar in size and scurf but has a faint garlic odour and grows in damper, more marshy ground.

Hygrocybe reidii is larger and orange with a smooth dry cap and a honey odour, and Hygrocybe conica is conical and blackens on bruising. For the Vermilion Waxcap the checklist is: very small, scarlet, dry minutely scurfy cap, gills with only a short decurrent tooth, smooth stem, and no colour change on handling.