page_title: Stropharia caerulea
section_title: Similar species
hierarchical_section_title: Stropharia caerulea / Description / Similar species
caption_attribution_description: Čeština: Houba z Podkomorských lesů, Česká republika, jižní Morava English: Fruitbodies of the agaric fungus Stropharia aeruginosa
context_page_description: Stropharia caerulea, commonly known as the blue roundhead, is an inedible species of agaric fungus in the family Strophariaceae. It is a common species found in Europe and North America, where it grows as a saprophyte in meadows, roadsides, hedgerows, gardens, and woodchip mulch. S. caerulea was officially described to science in 1979, although it was known to be a distinct species for about two centuries before that. The taxon Stropharia cyanea, as defined by Risto Tuomikoski in 1953, and used by several later authors, is a synonym of S. caerulea.
  The fruit bodies of Stropharia caerulea feature a greenish-blue cap sparsely covered in white flecks of veil at the margin, and a sticky, glutinous surface texture. Gills on the cap underside have an adnate or sinuate attachment to the stipe. They are initially pale purplish-brown, becoming darker brown in age as the spores mature. The greenish stipe is covered in white scales up to a thin, transient ring. It is similar in appearance to its less common relative Stropharia aeruginosa, but that species has a more robust ring on its stipe, more scales on the cap, and darker gills with white edges.
context_section_description: There are a few greenish Stropharia with which S. caerulea might be confused. Stropharia pseudocyanea is an uncommon species that grows in meadows. It has a more slender form than S. caerulea, a soft, spongy stipe, and flesh with an odour similar to fresh pepper. Microscopically, it has a dense palisade of slender, capitate (with a spherical tip) non-staining cheilocystidia on the gill edge. This gives the gills of young, fresh fruit bodies a whitish edge, a feature that is absent from S. caerulea. Another lookalike, S. aeruginosa, is less common than S. caerulea. It is distinguished from the latter by the well-developed ring zone on its stipe, darker gills with white edges, and more numerous whitish scales around the cap margin. Additionally, S. aeruginosa has more stable colours than S. caerulea, the colouration of which tends to quickly wash out. However, collections of Stropharia often show characteristics that are intermediate between two or more species, making them difficult to identify accurately.
caption: The lookalike S. aeruginosa has white scales around its cap margin.
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