Parrot Mushroom: Hygrocybe psittacina

Pileus
Cap 1.5-4 cm broad, convex when young, broadly convex to plane in age; color highly variable, bright green to dark green to olive green when young, changing to some shade of pink, yellow, or orange in age; surface glabrous, glutinous to viscid; flesh thin, waxy; taste and odor indistinctive.

Lamellae
Gill adnate to subdecurrent, sometime seceding; at first greenish, then changing color like the cap.

Stipe
Stipe 4-9 cm long, 3-5 mm broad at apex, equal or tapering, hollow; surface glabrous, viscid; greenish when young, changing to yellow, orange or pink, although apex may remain green.

Spores
Spores 8-10 x 5-6 µm, smooth, elliptical, nonamyloid. Spore print white.

Habitat
Solitary to scattered to gregarious in damp soil, moss, humus; most common under redwoods; November through January.

Edibility
Edible, but small and slimy.

Comments
Since it is our only green mushroom with a slimy cap and stipe, Hygrocybe psittacina is easy to identify when young and fresh. Older specimens are only slightly harder to identify. They are often multicolored with remnants of the green color left at the apex of the stipe.