Folded dung beetle (Umbrella plicatilis)
- Division: Basidiomycota (Basidiomycetes)
- Subdivision: Agaricomycotina (Agaricomycetes)
- Class: Agaricomycetes (Agaricomycetes)
- Subclass: Agaricomycetidae (Agaricomycetes)
- Order: Agaricales (Agaric or Lamellar)
- Family: Psathyrellaceae (Psatyrellaceae)
- Genus: Parasola
- Type: Parasola plicatilis (Dung beetle)
dung beetle (lat. Umbrella plicatilis) is a fungus of the Psathyrellaceae family. Not edible due to being too small.
Hat:
In youth, yellowish, elongated, closed, with age it opens and brightens, thanks to the thin pulp and protruding plates, it resembles a half-open umbrella. A round spot of a darker color remains in the center. As a rule, the hat does not have time to open up to the end, remaining half-spread. The surface is folded. The cap diameter is 1,5-3 cm.
Records:
Rare, adherent to a kind of collar (collarium); light grayish when young, turning black with age. However, unlike other representatives of the genus Coprinus, the folded dung beetle does not suffer from autolysis and, accordingly, the plates do not turn into “ink”.
Spore powder:
The black.
Leg:
5-10 cm high, thin (1-2 mm), smooth, whitish, very fragile. The ring is missing. As a rule, somewhere in 10-12 hours after the mushroom comes to the surface, the stem breaks under the influence of circumstances, and the mushroom ends up on the ground.
Spread:
The folded dung beetle is found everywhere in meadows and along roads from late May to mid-October, but is relatively inconspicuous due to a very short life cycle.
Similar species:
There are several more rare representatives of the genus Coprinus, which are almost impossible to distinguish from the folded dung beetle. When young, Coprinus plicatilis can be confused with golden bolbitius (Bolbitius vitellinus), but in just a couple of hours the error becomes apparent.