Slimy Waxcap
The sliminess of this Waxcap makes it both easy to identify but very hard to handle as it is slippery. Due to it being covered in slime it in considered inedible.
Scientific Name – Hygrocybe / Gliophorus irrigatus
Common Names:
Slimy Waxcap (EN), Cap Cwyr Llysnafeddog (CY), Wilgotniczka Szara (PL), Szürke Nedűgomba (HU)
Please note that each and every mushroom you come across may vary in appearance to these photos.
Cap
1-5 cm. Covered in slime and grey to grey/brown, can sometimes be quite pale. Starting conical but partly flattening out.
Gills
The gills are widely spaced and notched before running slightly down the stem (decurrent). There are transverse ‘gills’ running between the main gills.
Stem
3-10 cm long, 3-10 mm diameter. Concolourous with the cap, hollow and covered in slime.
Flesh
Grey to off white with a hollow stem.
Habitat
Among grass in pastures, fields and sometimes open woodland.
Possible Confusion
Yellow Foot Waxcap (Cuphophylus flavipes), pictured, is very similar but not as slimy, the cap is not as evenly coloured and it has a yellow base of the stem.
Other Facts
Waxcaps don’t like to be disturbed or sprayed so will be found where fields and woodland have been left alone.
It is now thought that waxcaps grow in association with mosses, before it was thought that waxcaps were saprophytic living or decaying organic matter.
