Garden Fungi – Chlorophyllum molybdites

 
Grows in GRASS.
 
After rain, large numbers of these tall, white fungi with a brown umbo appear in lawns and paddocks in the Western suburbs of Brisbane.
 
Queensland Health and the EPA list this fungus as a Toxic Category 1.
 
Fruit-body: Off-white to cream in colour, with darker brown scales scattered on the cap, more densely at the centre, it darkens with age. The juvenile cap can be globose to bell-shaped, aging to convex then plane, with a light umbo (raised apex) and a diameter to 240 mm. Initially, the gills are pallid-whitish but turn pallid-green with age.
 
Stem: White above the double ring, darkening below the ring; height up to 280 mm; diameter is even to 10 mm.
 
Spore print: Soft olive-green.
 
Smell: Grassy, sometimes acrid.
 
Habit: Can be solitary, but usually prolific in lawns and garden beds after rain.
 
Notes: This genus is similar to the Parasol Mushrooms Macrolepiota, but differentiated by their white gills and spores.