Mycena laevigata
Mycena laevigata (Lasch) Gillet.
Credit: James Lindsey
Source: James Lindsey's Ecology of Commanster Site (CC-by-nc-sa-2.5)
Agaricus laevigatus Lasch 1828
Common names
Ivoormycena (Dutch)
Schlüpfriger Helmling (German)
Bruskhette (Norwegian)
Grzybówka gładka (Polish)
Halhätta (Swedish)
Links
Description
Cap: 1-2 cm diameter, initially conical to convex or with a low umbo, remaining broadly conical or convex, often with a small papilla, glabrous, lubricous or subviscid in age or when wet, at first pale toward the margin, soon fading and whitish over all, or at maturity with cream colored center, closely striatulate to near the center, opaque at first; flesh thin, flaccid and cartilaginous, white.
Gills: moderately close and broad (0.3-0.4 cm), broadly adnate to subdecurrent, white or sometimes flushed with pink, edge even.
Credit: James Lindsey, as above.
Stem: 2-5 cm tall x 1-3 mm thick, equal, hollow, cartilaginous and tough, base white strigose and rooting somewhat in the rotten wood, glabrous, cartilaginous and brittle, tubular, when young bluish gray above, pallid below, soon fading to watery gray in iodine.
Spore print: white.
Spores: smooth, amyloid, pip-shaped, 7.5-8 x 4-5 µm.
Odor and taste: mild.
Habitat: growing in small groups, or caespitose on conifer logs.
Description adapted from Smith (1937), pp. 346-7.
Medicinal properties
Antitumor effects
Polysaccharides extracted from the mycelial culture of M. laevigata and administered intraperitoneally into white mice at a dosage of 300 mg/kg inhibited the growth of Sarcoma 180 and Ehrlich solid cancers by 100% and 90%, respectively (Ohtsuka et al., 1973).
References
Kubika JI.
Results of a study of Mycena in the Belansk tatry in Slovakia.
[Vysledky studia helmovek: Mycena S F. Gray v Belanskych Tatr'ach na Slovensku]
Ceska Mykol. 1963 17(2):77-88.
Ohtsuka S, Ueno S, Yoshikumi C, Hirose F, Ohmura Y, Wada T, Fujii T, Takahashi E.
Polysaccharides having an anticarcinogenic effect and a method of producing them from species of Basidiomycetes.
UK Patent 1331513, 26 September 1973.
Smith AH.
Studies in the Genus Mycena. IV.
Mycologia. 1937 29(3):338-54.
