The wine cap: a large saprobic mushroom with a wine-red to reddish-brown cap, dark purple-brown spores and a thick, cogwheel-like ring. It grows on wood chips and garden mulch and is easily cultivated outdoors in beds of wood chips or straw.
Edible and generally rated good to choice. Wild collections need care: Agaricus species (usually pinker gills), Stropharia hornemannii (on conifer stumps, no wrinkled ring) and the webcap Cortinarius praestans can be confused with it. Check for the dark purple-brown spore print and the thick, cogwheel-like ring.
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Mycology is an evolving science: names, classifications and safety information change as research advances. Entries are compiled from cited sources and reviewed, but may be incomplete or out of date — check the sources, and never rely on this library alone to identify or eat a mushroom.
Habitat
Saprobic on wood chips and mulch in gardens, parks and other cultivated ground, occasionally along stream beds after floods. Scattered, gregarious or clustered, from spring to autumn (May–November in Britain).
Distribution
Widespread and very common in North America east of the Great Plains, with occasional reports from Washington and British Columbia. Occasional in mainland Europe and very rare in Britain (England), mostly on wood-chip mulch. Introduced to Australia and New Zealand.
Characteristics
Cap: 4–14 cm across (exceptionally to 30 cm), convex becoming broadly convex to flat; wine-red to reddish-brown, fading to tan or yellowish; sticky when fresh. Gills: Attached, crowded, whitish to pale grey becoming purplish-grey to purple-black. Stem: 10–18 cm long, 0.9–2.5 cm thick, white, yellowing with age, often club-shaped at the base, with white rhizomorphs. Ring: Thick, white to yellowish, finely grooved above and radially split beneath like a cogwheel; often blackened by spores. Flesh: White and firm. Spore print: Dark purple-brown to purplish-black. Spores: 10–15 × 7–9 µm, ellipsoid, smooth, thick-walled, with a germ pore.
Difficulty
Beginner
Substrates
Wood chips · Straw · Wood chips layered with straw
