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Mushroom Monday: Orange Mycena
Today’s Mushroom Monday mushroom is Orange Mycena (Mycena leaiana). This is a beautiful orange mushroom that can stand out in the woods.
What Does Orange Mycena Look Like?
The most striking feature of orange mycena mushrooms are their bright orange caps and orange stems. Although they start out bright, the color does fade with age.
The gills of the mushroom are spaced apart and appear orange, but it’s only their edges that have the bright color. The gill sides are paler. This feature of having gills with edges of one color with sides of another is called marginate.
Orange mycena mushrooms are small in size. Their caps are around 0.40 to 1.6 inches across, and their hollow stems are around 1.2 to 2.7 inches tall. Their hairless caps start out with a bell or oval shape, and they broaden as they get older. The caps and stems are sticky, and they can feel slimy when wet.
Orange mycena mushrooms (Mycena leaiana) look similar to Mycena texensis.
Where and How do Orange Mycena Mushrooms Grow?
Orange mycena mushrooms generally grow in groups on dead hardwoods (they are saprophytic mushrooms). Sometimes the mushrooms will come from the same place on dead wood. A group like this is called a caespitose cluster. They can be found in roughly the eastern two thirds of the U.S.
If you liked learning about orange mycena mushrooms, check out our other Mushroom Monday posts to learn about more mushrooms and follow us on Facebook to keep up with Mushroom Monday and other posts.
