ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The tone grey tear or clay pale foraging (Hebeloma crustuliniforme) is a species of fungi from the Hymenogastraceae family.

Features

Macroscopic characteristics
The hat reaches a diameter of 3 to 8 (up to a maximum of 11) centimeters, is initially curved with curled edge and later spread out with a flat hump and in age partially opened edge. Its surface is bare, greasy to tacky/slimy and cream to yellow brown and darker in the middle. On the hat surface are also young no traces of the Velum universale recognizable. The lamellae are narrow and intermixed, have finely toothed cutting edges and have bulged on the stem. Young and in not too dry weather, droplets of excreted liquid often hang on the cutting edges, which leave stains of unevenly distributed spore powder on drying. The whole flesh stalk, sometimes stuffed-hollow, becomes 2,5–11(–15) cm long and 7–20 mm thick with uniform thickness or thickened base. The stem base is rounded towards the bottom, no root-like projections are formed. On the surface, it is colored pale or similar to the hat surface, without ring structures and especially towards the tip with fine flakes. Even in very young fruit bodies, no cortina is visible. The meat is thick and white, tastes bitter and radish and smells faintly of radish.

The spore powder is brown-olive.

Microscopic characteristics
The hat cover layer is a 200–350 μm thick Ixocutis made of up to 6 μm thick hyphae.

The spores are almond-shaped with indistinct papilla at the end of the spores. They appear yellow-brown in the light microscope, are hardly visible to weak and only recognizable under oil immersion to more clearly ornamented, also recognizable without oil immersion, have a peristor which detaches somewhat in individual to many spores, but which is usually only recognizable with oil immersion and react with Melzer's reagent only slightly brownish to weak, subsequently recognizable dextrinoid. The spores measure (9,2–)9,6-13,5(–14,9) × (5,4–)5,5–7,2(–7,7) μm, on average 10,8–12,2 × 6,1–6,7 μm, the length-width ratio being (1,43–)1,53–2,13(,2,49), on average 1,7-1,89.

The basidia are usually four-pored, rarely two-pored, have a basal buckle and measure 27–37 × 7.4–10 μm.

The cheilocystids are usually staggered club-shaped, some even only club-shaped, some staggered-spatel-shaped and mostly unspeaked, but rarely also secondary septated (simply or with buckle formation). The cheilocystides are (22–)29–86(–105) μm long and thick at the top (3,9–)4,9–10,3(–13,4) μm thick, at the centre (1,9–)2,4–6,2(–7,4) μm thick and at the base (1,9–)2,4–7,5(–7,9) μm thick.

Pleurocystides are missing.

The caulocystides are similar to the cheilocystides, but are septated several times.

Buckles appear in all braids.

Species description
The Heboloma-crustuliniforme complex consists of a large number of very similar and severely b