Bonfire Scalycap

Pholiota highlandensis

Bonfire sites, burnt areas. Summer, autumn.

Fruiting bodies small. Cap 3–5 cm across, convex, flattened, with an umbo, sometimes depressed, reddish yellow-brown, greenish-brown. Young gills cream, old ones greyish-brown, chocolate, adnate. Stem 3-4x0.2-0.5 cm, elastic, tough, pale yellowish, fibrous. Flesh thin, yellowish, not bitter, smelling of wood. Characteristic features: grows only on burnt ground and bonfire sites, which is unusual for most agaricoid fungi, especially for brittlestems, scalycaps and stumpcaps. Grows in larger or smaller groups on old fire sites. Inedible. Very common. After fires have devastated forests, it is one of the first to start growing in these places; foresters should make use of this property when replanting forests.