Freckled Dapperling

Naming

First described by the eminent nineteenth century mycologist Persoon as "Agaricus asper", the freckled dapperling has been through several taxonomical name changes. Lucien Quélet moved it to genus "Lepiota" and since then it has long been known as "Lepiota aspera" Quel.

For a time it was placed with the other "spiny" "Lepiota" species into a separate sub-genus called "Echinoderma", and in 1978 Marcel Bon put it into "Cystolepiota". Then in 1991 Bon created the new genus "Echinoderma" for this and similar brownish warty species, and the new name "Echinoderma asperum" is almost universally accepted in more recent publications.

The species name is the Latin adjective "asper", meaning "rough".

This same species was described by Weinmann in 1824 as "Agaricus acutesquamosus" and by Wilhelm Gottfried Lasch in 1828 as "Agaricus friesii", giving rise to corresponding synonyms in genera "Lepiota" and "Echinoderma". Although most authorities now consider all these names to be synonyms, Moser separated the "acutesquamosum" form from the "asperum" form as different species, on the basis that the latter has forking gills and the former not.The brownish scales on the cap and the lower part of the stem and the white gills make the genus "Echinoderma" quite distinctive, but "E. asperum" could be confused with other members, such as "E. calcicola" and the rare "E. hystrix".

Distribution

"Echinoderma asperum" appears during autumn in deciduous woodland, or in parks and gardens where wood chip mulch has been used. It has been recorded widely in northern temperate zones - varying between common and quite rare in Europe and North Africa, it occurs in North America, and it has been reported in Japan, Australia and New Zealand.