''Lepiota atrodisca'', commonly known as the dusky parasol,Siegel, Noah; Schwarz, Christian (September 1, 2024). ''Mushrooms of Cascadia: A Comprehensive Guide to Fungi of the Pacific Northwest''. Humboldt County, CA: Backcountry Press. p. 68. . is a species of mushroom in the genus

Lepiota ''Lepiota'' is a genus of gilled mushrooms in the family Agaricaceae. All ''Lepiota'' species are ground-dwelling saprotrophs with a preference for rich, calcareous soils. Basidiocarps (fruit bodies) are agaricoid with whitish spores, typica ...

. It is found in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, and

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. Its edibility is unknown, but similar species are known to be deadly toxic.

Taxonomy

''Lepiota atrodisca'' was first described by Stanford Myron Zeller in 1938. DNA analysis has shown that ''L. atrodisca'' could actually be multiple species, only distinguishable through genetic sequencing.

Description

The cap of ''Lepiota atrodisca'' is 1.5-5 centimeters in diameter, and has a dark-colored disc in the middle. The stipe is about 2–8.5 centimeters tall and 1-4 millimeters wide, and the gills are white.

Habitat and ecology

''Lepiota atrodisca'' grows in leaf litter in forests, and is common in low-lying areas in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...

. While it occasionally fruits during the summer and winter, it usually does so in the fall, shortly after it rains.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q107975485 atrodisca Fungi of India Fungi of North America Fungi of South America Fungi described in 1938 Fungus species