''Mycena galopus'', commonly known as the milking bonnet or the milk-drop mycena, is an inedible species of

fungus A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from th ...

in the family

Mycenaceae The Mycenaceae are a family of fungi in the order Agaricales. According to the ''Dictionary of the Fungi'' (10th edition, 2008), the family contains 10 genera and 705 species. This is one of several families that were separated from the Tricholom ...

of the order

Agaricales The fungal order Agaricales, also known as gilled mushrooms (for their distinctive gills) or euagarics, contains some of the most familiar types of mushrooms. The order has 33 extant families, 413 genera, and over 13,000 described species, alo ...

. It produces small

mushroom A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground, on soil, or on its food source. ''Toadstool'' generally denotes one poisonous to humans. The standard for the name "mushroom" is t ...

s that have grayish-brown, bell-shaped, radially-grooved caps up to wide. The gills are whitish to gray, widely spaced, and squarely attached to the

stem Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

. The slender stems are up to long, and pale gray at the top, becoming almost black at the hairy base. The stem will ooze a whitish

latex Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...

if it is injured or broken. The variety ''nigra'' has a dark gray cap, while the variety ''candida'' is white. All varieties of the mushroom occur during summer and autumn on

leaf litter Plant litter (also leaf litter, tree litter, soil litter, litterfall or duff) is dead plant material (such as leaves, bark, needles, twigs, and cladodes) that have fallen to the ground. This detritus or dead organic material and its constituent ...

coniferous Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All extant ...

and deciduous woodland. ''Mycena galopus'' is found in North America and Europe. The saprobic fungus is an important leaf litter decomposer, and able to utilize all the major constituents of plant litter. It is especially adept at attacking

cellulose Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell wall ...

and

lignin Lignin is a class of complex organic polymers that form key structural materials in the support tissues of most plants. Lignins are particularly important in the formation of cell walls, especially in wood and bark, because they lend rigidity ...

, the latter of which is the second most abundant

renewable A renewable resource, also known as a flow resource, is a natural resource which will replenish to replace the portion depleted by usage and consumption, either through natural reproduction or other recurring processes in a finite amount of ti ...

organic compound in the biosphere. The mushroom latex contains chemicals called benzoxepines, which are thought to play a role in a wound-activated chemical defense mechanism against yeasts and parasitic fungi.

Taxonomy

The mushroom was first described as ''Agaricus galopus'' by Christian Hendrik Persoon in 1800, and later transferred to the genus ''

Mycena ''Mycena'' is a large genus of small saprotrophic mushrooms that are rarely more than a few centimeters in width. They are characterized by a white spore print, a small conical or bell-shaped cap, and a thin fragile stem. Most are gray or bro ...

'' by Paul Kummer in 1871. An Australian taxon formerly considered a variety, ''Mycena galopus'' var. ''mellea'', was raised to species level and renamed '' M. thunderboltensis'' in 1998. The variety ''candida'' was described by

Jakob Emanuel Lange Jakob Emanuel Lange (2 April 1864 – 27 December 1941), was a Danish mycologist who studied the systematics of gilled mushrooms. His best-known work is ''Flora Agaricina Danica'', a five-volume plate work on the Agaricales of Denmark. He was als ...

in 1914 based on specimens he found in Denmark; variety ''nigra'' was named by

Carleton Rea Carleton Rea (7 May 1861 – 26 June 1946) was an English mycologist, botanist, and naturalist. Background and education Carleton Rea was born in Worcester, the son of the City Coroner. He was educated at The King's School and Magdalen Colle ...

in 1922. ''Mycena galopoda'' is an

orthographical variant In biology, within the science of scientific nomenclature, i.e. the naming of organisms, an orthographical variant (abbreviated orth. var.) in botany or an orthographic error in zoology, is a spelling mistake, typing mistake or writing mistake with ...

spelling. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''galopus'' is derived from the Greek γαλα "milk", and πονς "foot". The mushroom is commonly known as the "milking bonnet", or the "milk-drop Mycena". The varieties ''candida'' and ''nigra'' are the white and black milking bonnets, respectively.

Description

The cap of ''M. galopus'' is egg-shaped when young, later becoming conic to somewhat bell-shaped, and eventually reaching a diameter of . In age it often has a margin curved inward, and a prominent umbo. The cap surface has a

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