Mycena californiensis  Mycena californiensis is a species of fungus in the family Mycenaceae. It is a common and abundant species in the coastal oak woodlands of California, where it grows saprobically, feeding on the fallen leaves and acorns of various oak species. First described in 1860 by Berkeley and Curtis, the species was collected four years earlier during an exploring and surveying expedition. It was subsequently considered a doubtful species by later "Mycena" researchers, until a 1999 publication validated the taxon. "Mycena elegantula" is considered a synonym. Making their appearance in late autumn to early winter, the small and fragile fruit bodies are characterized by reddish-brown tones in the cap, stem, and the edges of the gills. If cut, the mushroom tissue will "bleed" a deep reddish to orangish latex. As is typical of the genus "Mycena", caps of "M. californiensis" are bluntly conical, becoming bell-shaped to convex, and eventually flatten out when old. They measure up to in diameter, and are attached to thin, hollow stems that are up to long. The species was originally collected for science purposes by the American botanist Charles Wright during the North Pacific Exploring and Surveying Expedition of 1853–56. The single collection was found growing on fallen oak leaves at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, in Solano County, California in January 1856. The specimen was sent by American mycologist Moses Ashley Curtis to his British colleague Miles Joseph Berkeley, who published a brief description of the species in 1860, calling it "Agaricus californiensis", in what was then the subgenus "Mycena". Berkeley and Curtis noted that it differed from "A. aurantio-marginatus" (known today as "Mycena aurantiomarginata") in the nature of the gills, and they called it "a more graceful species." In his 1887 "Sylloge Fungorum", Pier Andrea Saccardo raised the subgenus "Mycena" to generic status, so the species became known as "Mycena californiensis". In his 1947 monograph of North American "Mycena", Alexander H. Smith included it as an "excluded or doubtful species", saying that the species "cannot be recognized until the microscopic characters of the type are known."