North American Species of Mycena

Smith, Alexander

SUMMARY: In the following account 218 species are recognized from the United States and Canada and 19 from the American tropics. Those from the United States and Canada are distributed in the subgenera. as follows: Pseudomycena, 6; Eumycena, 185; Glutinipes, 21; Mycenella, 6. In Eumycena the distribution in sections is: Cyanescentes, 2; Corticolae, 5; Deminutivae, 37; Lactipedes, 11; Adonidae, 27; Calodontes, 18; Typicae, 66; Omphaliariae, 14; Floccipedes, 3; Corticatae, 3; Hydropus, 5. Naturally the Typicae of Eumycena form a center about which to group the other sections and subgenera. Kuhner in his monograph recognized 143 species in Mycena for Europe. This figure should be compared with the 218 known to occur in the United States and Canada. Even after one allows for the usual differences of opinion among investigators as to what constitutes a species, it is still evident that North America contains a much more diverse Mycena flora than Europe. This is in line with observations on other genera such as Leucopaxillus (see Singer and Smith, 1943), and also 'with mine on Cortinarius. Studies of the Mycena flora of other parts of the world have not been extensive enough to justify comparison. Cleland (1934) recognized 17 species from South Australia, but that flora must still he regarded as relatively unexplored as compared with those of Europe and North America. The small number recorded from South America, Asia, and Africa can be similarly explained. The distribution by states and provinces in the United States and Canada has not been summarized because of insufficient knowledge about it in both countries. Large numbers of species have been reported for the Pacific Coast and for North Carolina, Tennessee, New York, and Michigan in the East because intensive collecting has been carried on in these regions. During the course of this study over three thousand collections of Mycenae have been studied.