English: Butter Waxcap.
German: Zerbrechlicher saftling; Zerbrechlicher Gold-Saftling.
Synonym: Agaricus ceraceus; Gymnopus ceraceus; Hygrophorus ceraceus; Hygrocybe vitellinoides;
Hygrocybe ceracea.
Name: Hygrocybe means watery head; ceracea in Latin means waxy.
Clades:
Hygrophoraceae;
Agaricales;
Agaricomycetes;
Basidiomycota;
Fungi.
Region: widespread, Europe, Scandinavia, Britain, Ireland; North America.
Habitat: unimproved, acid and neutral grassland, upland meadows, parkland, old lawns, churchyards; sometimes on stable sand dunes; rarely on woodland edges; cold climate.
Use: too insubstantial to be of any significant culinary value.
MycologyIdentification: fairly easy
Type: flesh is orange; fruiting August to November.
Cap: bright yellow or orange-yellow, darker towards the centre, the margin is translucently striate, fades slowly to white when older; hemispherical at first, convex and eventually almost flat, sometimes with a slightly depressed centre; 1 to 3 cm in diameter; surface buttery, waxy; fruits in scattered groups over a large area, from late summer to early winter; waxy and sticky in wet weather; not slimy; covered in tiny nodules, less evident or absent when the caps are fully expanded.
Hymenium: gills adnate or slightly decurrent, thin, fairly crowded, usually a paler yellow than the cap, sometimes almost white.
Stem: yellow on the surface, within the stem flesh, sometimes tinged orange near to the base; dry; smooth; silky or mat; sometimes laterally compressed; usually hollow; no ring; 2 to 5 cm tall, 2 to 4 mm in diameter.
Spore print: white.
Spores: oblong to cylindrical; often constricted; smooth; 6 to 8, by 3 to 4 μm, inamyloid; basidia mainly four-spored, claviform, 35 to 54, by 5 to 7μm; sterigmata 5 to 7 μm long.