California Mushroom

A Monday on November 14th, Mr.P took his science classes out for a chance to collect mushrooms for the winter when we can’t go outside to investigate the pond area. Our task was to collect 2 of the same kind of mushrooms for spore print for an easier identification. We bring out scissors, a ruler, and a camera and get ready to find some mushrooms to identify.
As his 7th period class, we have a shorter amount of time which means we get the closet place to the school, the isle. Being the first class to go out, we have advantages and disadvantages. 1 advantage is we get first pick at mushrooms. This means more choices of mushrooms and more unique colors and shapes. More unique mushrooms made it easier to identify. Although we thought that way our mushrooms were not as out of the box as the others that were found.
We got a total of 3 mushrooms. The first one that we got was a brown/orange mushroom that had attached gills. The top of the mushroom pushed up from all the rest where it was the darkest brown color. The cap was about the size of a quarter, maybe a little more. Underneath of the mushroom was an orange color and what looked like a collar. Though I am not sure about that. This mushroom was found in a place with 100% sun and near the road side. It was also growing on grass but did not seem to be growing on other mushrooms. So far during my investigation I think that it is a macrocystida cucumis.
This is also called a California mushroom. We have researched this mushroom and found it is widely distributed. We think it could of originated in California and moved here. Also the characteristics match our characteristics of our mushroom. It can also be found in North America
That is one my mushrooms I have to identify. I hope I can figure out the mystery of the mushrooms.