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Laccaria Berk. & Broome, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 5 12 370 (1883)
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883

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Present
New Zealand
Political Region

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Berk. & Broome
Berk. & Broome
1883
370
ICN
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
genus
Laccaria

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Laccaria

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Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883

Small fungi the size of a one or two dollar coin with a flattish cap that is usually either pink or violet, always on soil. The stem is central and fibrous, with no ring. They have thick and quite widely spaced gills which are flesh pink or violaceous and in older specimens are covered in white spores. Spore print white.

Laccaria is well represented in New Zealand with 12 species, several of these are thought to be exotic.

Laccaria species are ectomycorrhizal and the indigenous species all occur with Nothofagus, Leptospermum or Kunzea, but unlike most of the other fungi that live with specific trees, this family are thought to be able to survive also by living on leaf litter as saprotrophs. The introduced species are found with pines, oaks, birch and a number of other introduced species. Where they occur they are often in big troops of several dozen fruit bodies.

A genus of small mushrooms, common throughout New Zealand. Ectomycorrhizal, the genus includes some 'early succession' species found in nurseries and disturbed sites. The mushrooms are either brownish or purplish in colour, with a waxy feel to the gills. The spores have spine-like ornamentations which are amyloid in Meltzer's reagent.

Fourteen species have been reported from New Zealand, but there is doubt about the true dentity of some of the New Zealand taxa. Only those listed below have descriptions or images available from NZFungi.

Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883

Pileus thin, regular; gills adnate, white, becoming mealy with the spores; stem central, externally fibrous; spores white, globose, minutely warted.

Allied to Clitocybe, under which genus the species of Laccaria were at one time included. Characterized by the broadly adnate gills, which become powdered at maturity with the large white spherical warted spores. Growing on the ground.

Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883

The thick mealy gills and echinate non-amyloid spores are characters by which the members of this genus are readily distinguished. However, the size and shape of spores, which is so constant a feature of the species of other genera, is not necessarily so for the species of Laccaria.

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Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome (1883)
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome (1883)
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome (1883)
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome (1883)
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome (1883)
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome (1883)
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome (1883)
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome (1883)
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome (1883)
Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
Laccaria Berk. & Broome (1883)

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Laccaria Berk. & Broome 1883
[Not available]

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1cb18fa8-36b9-11d5-9548-00d0592d548c
scientific name
Names_Fungi
1 January 2001
22 December 2013
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