Look I will show you and you can tell me what you would call it.  Really.  Because I don’t know what to call it.  I cannot make an ID.  I hope you can.

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[aren’t there some beautiful colors in this mushroom?]

I just  bought Peterson’s Field Guide: Mushrooms by Vera & Kent McKnight.  (Good ol’ Half-Price Bookstore). Plenty big book, in fact, that might be the problem. Too many mushrooms Wouldn’t you think if you have a mushroom with a blue-ish green-ish cap and flesh-colored gills that one could find the correct name for it pretty quickly.  But that has not been the case for me.

I’ve consulted the other two books I’ve told you about, the MushroomExpert.com, and a great new interactive website–http://www.mycokey.com/newMycoKeySite/MycoKeyIdentQuick.html.  It is the work of  Jens H. Petersen, University of Aarhus, Denmark & Thomas Læssøe, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.  Back to the problem of the moment, even plugging the identifying criteria of my mystery mushroom into the interactive Danish website, I didn’t get the correct identification.

So far the closest I have gotten is to suggest that it might be a Clitocybe.  It fits the Clitocybe odora (Anise Funnelcap) very well except I didn’t even get a hint of anise.  In fact, I seem to never sniff a mushroom that smells any different that a ‘store bought.’

Additional notes to guide you: obviously it is growing near Pines, and it is also sandy soil.  The weather has been rainy, cloudy and temperatures have been between 50-70 F.  It is February in south-central Texas.

I am hoping there is a mushroom expert that will be able to see my semi-macro photos and solve the mystery.