Species details
Poplar fieldcap
Cyclocybe cylindracea
Extra caution required
Photo: Matej Frančeškin · CC BY 4.0 · Photo source · License
Description
A clustered brownish wood-growing mushroom with a fleshy cap, pale stem, and persistent ring.
Identification features
Gills are pale when young and later tobacco-brown; the cap often cracks radially.
Identification checklist
Check the entire fruitbody for identification. A clustered brownish wood-growing mushroom with a fleshy cap, pale stem, and persistent ring. Gills are pale when young and later tobacco-brown; the cap often cracks radially. Typical habitat: In warm areas on living or dead poplar, willow, and other hardwood.
Detailed features
- Cap
- 4–10 cm, reddish-brown when young, later light brown to ochre; margin often whitens and cracks.
- Hymenophore
- Gills start white then brown, crowded and attached to the stem.
- Stem
- 4–15 × 1–2 cm, silky white, tapering to the base, with a distinct hanging white ring.
- Flesh
- White and firm, sometimes slightly brownish near the base.
- Smell
- Slightly rancid to cheese-like.
- Spore print
- Tobacco-brown.
Size
- Cap diameter
- 4–10 cm
- Stem height
- 4–15 cm
- Stem diameter
- 1–2 cm
Habitat
In warm areas on living or dead poplar, willow, and other hardwood.
Fruiting period
May, June, July, August, September, October, November
Ecology
- Trophic mode
- Saprotrophic
- Host trees
- Poplar / aspen (Populus), Willow (Salix), Horse chestnut (Aesculus)
- Substrate
- Dead hardwood, Wood
- Notes
- A warmth-loving wood-inhabiting species, especially with poplar, but also willow, horse chestnut, and other deciduous trees.
How to separate similar species
Compare especially with these similar species: Kuehneromyces mutabilis, Galerina marginata, Omphalotus olearius. Check the combination of cap shape and colour, spore-bearing surface, stem, flesh changes and habitat. A single feature or photograph is not enough; if the key characters do not match the description, do not treat the identification as confirmed.
Similar species
- Sheathed woodtuft (Kuehneromyces mutabilis)
Usually smaller, with a strongly hygrophanous cap and scaly lower stem.
- Funeral bell (Galerina marginata) DANGEROUS
Usually smaller and more rusty-brown; deadly toxic, so clustered wood mushrooms require special caution.
- Jack-o'-lantern mushroom (Omphalotus olearius) DANGEROUS
Is bright orange with orange gills; toxic.