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Cinnamon-capped agaric
Cortinarius or Gymnopilus Genus
Angles captured. Fifteen frames of one fruitbody over about two minutes — from above, from several sides, low profiles against the canopy showing the full stipe and gills, and four with a toy truck placed alongside as a scale reference. The apparent differences in size and colour between frames are perspective, exposure and changing light, not different mushrooms.
Morphology
A single fruitbody. Cap 5–6 cm, warm tawny-orange to reddish date-brown, convex becoming plane with a broad low umbo, dry and finely fibrillose. Gills brown, deepening to a rusty pinkish-brown in the later frames as the light changed — consistent with a maturing rusty spore deposit. Stipe 8–10 cm, pale straw-yellow, smooth, slender relative to the cap.
Habitat & substrate
Wet oak litter on a slope with low evergreen groundcover, near the edge of a fern patch.
Lookalikes & what rules them out
Warm cinnamon to tawny caps over pale stipes, with gills darkening to rusty brown, fits Cortinarius or Gymnopilus. Gymnopilus is typically on wood and bitter; these are all in litter.
To confirm this identification
Spore print — both give rusty brown, which would at least confirm the pair and rule out several alternatives. Then look for cortina remnants on the upper stipe.
Notes
Corrected. This was originally split into five separate entries on the assumption that the changes in apparent size and cap colour meant several fruitbodies. They are one mushroom worked hard from many angles. This is the second time perspective has fooled me the same way — the violet cort in Volume 1 (TM0010) was the first. Standing-height frames make a mushroom look small and pale; low close frames make the same mushroom look large and saturated. Worth remembering as a systematic bias in this guide rather than a one-off.
Found at Leominster State Forest, Leominster, MA on Thursday, 6 August 2026 at 10:51. See the full walk for that day's weather and everything else recorded.