Coprinopsis is a genus of mushrooms in the family Psathyrellaceae.
Coprinopsis was split out of the genus
Coprinus based on molecular data. The species
Coprinopsis cinerea is a model organism for mushroom-forming basidiomycota, and its genome has recently been sequenced completely.
Taxonomy: The genus was described in 1881 by the Finnish mycologist Petter Adolf Karsten with the type species
Coprinopsis friesii and
C. phaeospora placed within it, both having formerly been classified as
Coprinus species. Karsten stopped using the
Coprinopsis genus name by 1889 and in 1887 it was considered a subgenus of
Coprinus by Narcisse Théophile Patouillard.
The genus name
Coprinopsis was revived in 2001 when phylogenetic analysis was used to classify and rearrange species within the
Coprinus genus.
Coprinopsis was considered to be an advantageous name to use for the genus due to using the same root word as
Coprinus. Despite the name however many of these species are not associated with dung and the type species itself was described as growing from dry grass on the edge of woodland.
Etymology: Coprinopsis derives from the Greek
kóprinos meaning dung and the Greek suffix
ópsis. This refers to the similarity to
Coprinus species.
Selected species: For complete list see List of
Coprinopsis species
- Coprinopsis acuminata (humpback inkcap)
- Coprinopsis atramentaria (common inkcap)
- Coprinopsis episcopalis (mitre inkcap)
- Coprinopsis jonesii (bonfire inkcap)
- Coprinopsis lagopus (hare´s foot inkcap)
- Coprinopsis nivea (snowy inkcap)
- Coprinopsis picacea (magpie inkcap)
- Coprinopsis variegata (the scaly ink cap or the feltscale inky cap)