The sharp-scaly Pholiota grows in crowded clusters of mushrooms
When hiking in the woods, sometimes you come across something that confuses you. I thought I was looking at a pan of bread rolls when I first saw this colony of sharp-scaly pholiota. There’s a lot to learn about this unique species of mushroom and the Strophariaceae family that it belongs to.
The sharp-scaly Pholiota grows in crowded clusters of mushrooms. This mushroom has caps that are up to four inches across and the stems can grow to be 5.5 inches in length. They have a yellowish-brown color. The cap has a shape that looks like a roll. It is covered with small cone-shaped scales. These are also present on the stem of this mushroom. It can be difficult to distinguish from the Pholiota squarrosa, but that mushroom has a greenish tinge to the gills. Another difference is that the Sharp-scaly Pholiota is sticky when wet, and the Pholiota squarrosa is not.
The scientific name for Sharp-scaly Pholiota is Pholiota squarrosoides. The Pholiota genus contains small to medium-sized, fleshy mushrooms. There are around 150 species in the genus. The name “Pholiota” comes from the Greek word “pholis”, which means “scale”. Another member of this family is the well-known Pholiota nameko. Its common name is Japanese nameko mushroom, and it is a commonly eaten species of mushroom.
The Strophariaceae is the family that the Pholiota genus belongs to. There are more than 1,300 species within this family of fungi. The spore prints in this family tend to be red-brown to dark brown. The family was circumscribed by the mycologists Rolf Singer and Alexander H. Smith in 1946. The genus Psilocybe belongs to the Strophariaceae family. This genus of fungi is known for its psychedelic mushrooms. The Deconica genus contains all the species of nonhallucinogenic mushrooms that used to belong to the Psilocybe genus.
The name “Pholiota” comes from the Greek word “pholis”, which means “scale”
Did you know?
- The sharp-scaly pholiota belongs to the Agaricales order in the Fungi kingdom.
- Sharp-scaly Pholiota are saprobes, which are mushrooms that survive by decomposing dead or decaying organic material to use as food.
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