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Hard Agrocybe
(Agrocybe dura) |
 Hard Agrocybe sculpture, acrylic paint |
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The hard agrocybe has a beige to brown dry, convex cap, sometimes with a low knob, 1-5/8 to 4 inches wide. The older caps develop prominent cracks, reminding me of the Marvel Comics superhero, The Thing, and making this mushroom easy to identify.
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Hard Agrocybe, side view Note the cap's characteristic blocky texture. |
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The broad white gills, which attach to the stem, become brown as the mushroom ages. The spore print is dark brown. The white to beige solid stalk is 1-5/8 to 4 inches long, 1/4 to 5/8 inches thick. A faint ring encircles the stalk (or remnants of this partial veil may hang from the cap margin) when the mushroom is young. |
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Hard Agrocybe, from below The gills are forked: they don't all reach from the edge of the cap all the way to the stalk. |
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This decomposer grows on wood chips in great quantity in the spring, throughout the northern US, in the spring. Although non-poisonous, it's so terrible-tasting, anyone who tries it realizes that it's inedible. |
