Species details
Tiger knight
Tricholoma pardinum
Poisonous
Photo: Alan Rockefeller · CC BY 4.0 · Photo source · License
Description
A robust poisonous knight with a grey cap covered in large dark scales and a stout white stem.
Identification features
Gills are white to cream and may weep; the pleasant mealy smell can be misleading.
Identification checklist
Check the entire fruitbody for identification. A robust poisonous knight with a grey cap covered in large dark scales and a stout white stem. Gills are white to cream and may weep; the pleasant mealy smell can be misleading. Typical habitat: Mountain deciduous and conifer woodland, especially on limestone with beech and fir.
Detailed features
- Cap
- 5–15 cm, fleshy and robust, grey with distinct darker scales that may overlap like roof tiles; initially hemispherical, later flattened.
- Hymenophore
- Gills whitish to ochre-yellow, broad, ventricose, and free to notched at the stem.
- Stem
- 4–8 × 1–3 cm, whitish to ochre, solid and often stout; young stems may be finely pruinose just below the gills.
- Flesh
- White to greyish, sometimes faintly yellowish or reddish.
- Smell
- Mealy.
- Taste
- Do not taste.
- Spore print
- White.
Size
- Cap diameter
- 5–15 cm
- Stem height
- 4–8 cm
- Stem diameter
- 1–3 cm
Habitat
Mountain deciduous and conifer woodland, especially on limestone with beech and fir.
Fruiting period
August, September, October, November
Ecology
- Trophic mode
- Mycorrhizal
- Substrate
- Forest soil
- Notes
- Mycorrhizal with deciduous and coniferous trees; fruits in woodland from late summer into autumn.
How to separate similar species
Compare especially with these similar species: Tricholoma terreum, Tricholoma atrosquamosum, Tricholoma portentosum. 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
- Charcoal burner knight (Tricholoma portentosum)
The sooty head has a smoother, innately fibrous, sticky-when-wet cap rather than a coarsely scaly one.
- Dark-scaled knight (Tricholoma atrosquamosum)
Often less robust and more finely scaly; caution is needed with similar grey tricholomas.