Leucopaxillus cerealis

The fruit bodies are stout mushrooms that grow on the ground. The caps may grow to 20 centimetres in diameter (but mature caps may also be much smaller) and are white (to yellowish brown to tan with age).  They are dry and smooth (except for cracking that may develop with age) and may be gently rounded, flat or somewhat funnel-shaped. The gills are white to creamy and the stem (generally whitish and stout) is dry, smooth and featureless. The mushrooms may grow in small, dense clusters so that mutual pressure gives them very distorted shapes.

Spore print: white.

The first published record of a sighting of this species in Australia was published in 2012 (V. & J. Hubregste, The fungus Leucopaxillus cerealis newly recorded from Australia, Victorian Naturalist, 129, 160-166). For many years this fungus went under the name Leucopaxillus albissimus and was regarded by some as a highly variable northern hemisphere species with several variants worthy of recognition as distinct taxa but below species level. Others have thought those variants worthy of recognition as separate species, and so have proposed the additional names Leucopaxillus cutrefactus, Leucopaxillus monticola, Leucopaxillus paradoxus and Leucopaxillus piceinus. The Hubregstes had observed their mushrooms, at the same site in Melbourne, from 2007 to 2011 and in those years had noted that the variation in macroscopic or microscopic features was such that, if you held the several-species view, the mushrooms at that site belonged to more than one of the species listed above. However, a look at the Leucopaxillus literature shows that the differences within the cerealis group are subtle and that there is still debate as to one species or several. Given that debate, and in light of their own observations of variation, the Hubregstes argue that it is best to use the name  Leucopaxillus cerealis for Australian specimens until further studies, especially with molecular data, shed light on the relationships between Australian and overseas members of the cerealis group.