Goldleaf Shield

not listed

NNR - Unranked

not listed

Goldleaf Shield is a small, easily identified, gilled mushroom. It occurs in Europe, Asia, and North America. It occurs across the United States. It is fairly common east of the Great Plains and west of the Rocky Mountains. It is not common in Minnesota. It is found in summer and fall, usually alone, sometimes in pairs, in deciduous and mixed forests, and on wood chips in urban areas. It grows on well-rotted logs, branches, and debris of hardwoods, especially oaks. It obtains its nutrients from dead wood (saprobic).

When it first appears, the cap is convex and dark brown to olive-brown to yellowish-brown, usually darker in the center. The upper surface is dry, without hairs or scales (bald), and sometimes wrinkled in the center. Mature caps are fragile, ⅝″to 2″ (1.5 to 5.0 cm), broadly convex or flat, often with a raised bump in the center (umbonate). The cap is obscurely lined toward the margins, and the margins are curved downward or flat.

The gills are closely spaced or crowded and are not attached to the stalk (free). They are white at first, turning pinkish as the spores mature. Between the primary gills there are short, secondary gills originating at the margin.

The stalk is fragile, straight or curved, ¾″ to 2¾″ (2 to 7 cm) long, and 1⁄16″ to ¼″ (2 to 6 mm) thick, more or less the same thickness from top to bottom. It is pale yellow or greenish-yellow and is usually lighter near the base.

The flesh is thin and translucent white or yellowish. It is edible but too small and infrequent to be worth gathering.

The spore print is pink.

Hardwoods, especially oaks

Summer and fall

Sources

4, 7, 24, 26, 29, 30, 77.

A recently published morphological and molecular analyses of the Pluteus romellii clade (Ševčíková, et al., 2022) showed that the species Pluteus romellii is restricted to Europe and Asia. Five new species are proposed, among them Pluteus austrofulvus and Pluteus parvisporus in eastern North America, and Pluteus vellingae across North America.

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Location: Duluth, MN