Big Spored Conecap

Cap: 0.6–2.5 cm wide and 0.5–2.2 cm tall or up to 4 cm wide and 3 cm tall in the largest specimens, campanulate to convex and often as high as it is wide. The surface is pale orange to brown, hygrophanous and moist with striations running almost to the centre. It is smooth but when viewed under a magnifying glass has fine hairs. Gills: Adnexed, crowded and light yellow brown to light rusty brown with a slight ventricose bulge and lighter edge. Stem: 3.1–10 cm long and 1-3mm thick or up to 15 cm long and 4mm thick in the largest specimens. It is cylindrical with a slightly bulbous base that is 2-6mm thick. The surface is orange yellow with a yellow tip when immature and uniformly brassy yellow to orangy yellow when mature often with a slightly darker orange brown base when old. Longitudinal striations run up the length of the stem and the surface has some hairs. Flesh: Whitish to light yellow in the cap and orangish yellow in the stem. Smell: Odourless or slightly radish like when crushed. Taste: Indistinct.

Microscopic details. Spores: (11.5) 13.5–21 (23.5) x 7.5–11 (12.5) μm or (15.1) 15.6–19 x 7.8–10.6 μm on average. Ellipsoidal or rarely slightly limoniform (lemon shaped) with a thick wall and large 2–4 μm wide germ pore. Orange-brown to reddish-brown in KOH. Basidia: 18–30 x 9–13.5 μm. 2 spored. Round-petiolate to barrel shaped. Cheilocystidia: 15–22.5 x 6–11 μm. …

The specimens studied by Atkinson were found growing on the ground amongst mixed grassed and moss on the edge of a coniferous wood near Stockholm, Sweden. Hausknecht described them as growing in grassy, nitrate-rich meadows or in dung, disturbed ground, compost and rarely in leaf litter or on the edge of burnt areas. It is common in Europe and Hausknecht's description was based on collection in Austria in Italy.

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