English: Roe-brown roof fungus; Deer shield; Deer mushroom; Fawn mushroom.
Name: cervinus, meaning deer.
German: Rehbraune Dachpilz; Hirschbrauner Dachpilz.
Synonym: Pluteus atricapillus, Pluteus brunneoradiatus, Pluteus exilis; Agaricus lividus.
Region: widely distributed.
Habitat: on rotten logs, roots, tree stumps; sawdust, other wood waste.
Use: edible, when young, considered of poor quality; taste mild to earthy, slightly bitter; smell radish smell.
MycologyEcology: saprotrophic.
Type: spring and fall.
Cap: bell-shaped, wrinkled when young, later convex, flat or umbonate; 3 to 12 cm diameter; deer-brown, vary from light ochre-brown to dark brown, with admixtures of grey or black; centre of the cap may be darker; surface is smooth and matte to silky-reflective; filamentous, dark radial fibres when seen through a lens.
Hymenium: free; with gills; gills initially white, later distinctive pinkish sheen, caused by the ripening spores.
Stipe: bare; 5 to 12 cm long; ± 1 cm in diameter, usually thicker at the base; covered with brown vertical fibrils on a white ground; flesh is soft, white.
Spore print: salmon to reddish-brown.
Spore: 8 by 5 μm; elliptical; smooth.