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, typically with scaly caps and a ring on the stipe. Around 400 species of Lepiota are currently recognized worldwide. Many species are poisonous, some lethally so.

Taxonomy

History

Agaricus section Lepiota was originally published in 1797 by South African-born mycologist Christian Hendrik Persoon. It was subsequently raised to the rank of genus by Samuel Frederick Gray. As originally conceived, the genus was a mix of agarics with rings on their stems, including species now placed in Armillaria, Cortinarius, and Pholiota. In 1822, however, the influential Swedish mycologist Elias Magnus Fries restricted Lepiota to white-spored, ringed agarics.

Based on macro- and micromorphology, later authors gradually refined the generic concept of Lepiota. Some unrelated genera, such as Cystoderma (Fayod 1889) and Limacella (Earle 1909), were removed from the genus whilst several related genera, including Leucocoprinus (Patouillard 1888), Macrolepiota and Leucoagaricus (Singer 1948), and Cystolepiota (Singer 1952), were segregated. These segregate genera, together with Lepiota itself, are still often grouped together as Lepiota s.l. (sensu lato = in the wide sense) or as the "lepiotoid" fungi.