Hygrocybe psittacina
Führ. Pilzk. 112. 1871.
Common Name: parrot mushroom
Synonym: Hygrophorus psittacinus (Schaeff.: Fr.) Fr.; Gliophorus psittacinus (Schaeff.: Fr.) Herink
Cap 1.5-4 cm broad, convex when young, broadly convex to plane in age; color highly variable, bright green to dark green to olive green when young, changing to some shade of pink, yellow, or orange in age; surface glabrous, glutinous to viscid; flesh thin, waxy; taste and odor indistinctive.
Gill adnate to subdecurrent, sometime seceding; at first greenish, then changing color like the cap.
Stipe 4-9 cm long, 3-5 mm broad at apex, equal or tapering, hollow; surface glabrous, viscid; greenish when young, changing to yellow, orange or pink, although apex may remain green.
Spores 8-10 x 5-6 µm, smooth, elliptical, nonamyloid. Spore print white.
Solitary to scattered to gregarious in damp soil, moss, humus; most common under redwoods; November through January.
Edible, but small and slimy.
Since it is our only green mushroom with a slimy cap and stipe, Hygrocybe psittacina is easy to identify when young and fresh. Older specimens are only slightly harder to identify. They are often multicolored with remnants of the green color left at the apex of the stipe.
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Bird, C.J. & Grund, D.W. (1979). Nova Scotian Species of Hygrophorus. The Nova Scotia Museum: Nova Scotia. 131 p.
Boertmann, D. (1996). The Genus Hygrocybe (Fungi of Northern Europe, Vol. 1). Danish Mycological Society: Copenhagen, Denmark. 184 p.
Hesler, L.R. & Smith, A.H. (1963). North American Species of Hygrophorus. University of Tennessee Press: Knoxville, TN. 416 p.
Largent, D.L. (1985). The Agaricales (Gilled Fungi) of California. 5. Hygrophoraceae. Mad River Press: Eureka, CA. 208 p.
Smith, A.H. (1949). Mushrooms in their Natural Habitats. Sawyer's Inc: Portland, OR. 626 p.
