Blackening Waxcap
Hygrocybe nigrescens
38.71, -0.0241871
Field Notes
Description:
The carmine beauty of these little waxcaps is but transient, as they soon turn black all over.
Blackening Waxcaps can appear very quickly after rain in late summer and autumn.
This is one of very few waxcaps that are considered edible, although they are not highly rated and their small size makes them hardly worth collecting to eat.
Cap, 4 to 7cm in diameter; varying from an initial light orange to orange-red, often paler at the margin.
The conical caps rarely open out fully and they soon turn black - at first in patches but eventually they blacken all over.
Even when blackened the caps of these fungi remain quite shiny. The surface is very slippery in wet weather.
Habitat:
On roadside verges, in churchyards and on meadows and other areas of closely cropped or mown grassland where artificial fertilisers are not spread.
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