(12 votes, average: 3.58 out of 5)
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Pink Waxcap
Edible 
Autumn 
Winter 
This is a rare and beautiful mushroom and is easy to identify with it’s sharply conical top and pink colouring so should be left alone to grow when found and only admired or photographed.
| Mushroom Type | |
| Common Names | Pink Meadow Waxcap (EN), Ballerina Waxcap, Cap Cwyr Pinc (CY), Stożkownica Czapeczkowata (PL), Rózsaszínű Nedűgomba (HU) |
| Scientific Name | Hygrocybe / Porpolomopsis calyptriformis |
| Synonyms | Hygrocybe calyptriformis, Hygrophorus calyptriformis, Humidicutis calyptriformis |
| Season Start | Aug |
| Season End | Dec |
| Average Mushroom height (CM) | 5-8 |
| Average Cap width (CM) | 2-7 |
Cap
2-7 cm. Pale to darker pink with a greasy feel. Acutely conical but will flatten out a bit and spit radially with maturity.
Gills
Pink becoming pale pink with maturity, fairly widely spaced and free of the stem to slightly joined (adnexed).
Stem
5-8 cm tall, 0.5-1 mm wide. White but can have a pink tinge.
Habitat
In unimproved grassland like fields, pastures and graveyards.
Possible Confusion
The very rare Jubilee Waxcap can look similar but is a deeper pink/purple, is not as sharply conical as the Pink Waxcap and the cap and stem are covered in slime.
Spore Print
White. Ellipsoid.
Frequency
Rare.
Other Facts
This is a rare mushroom so should NOT be picked, it is also reported as not worth while in taste in some books.
Although rare it is most often found in Western England and Wales.
Waxcaps don’t like to be disturbed or sprayed so will be found where fields and woodland have been left alone.
It is now thought that waxcaps grow in association with mosses, before it was thought that waxcaps were saprophytic living or decaying organic matter.
6 comments for Pink Waxcap
11th october 2020, just found a lawn covered in these,, lovely sight
29/10/20 – found quite a few on a meadow next door to Newton Stewart football club in south west Scotland. I’d post pics but you don’t allow that it seems 🙂
Just found quite a few in a meadow near Whitland , Carmarthenshire
We’ve found three of these today in our mossy and unimproved lawn! Can see why they’re called ballerinas. We live in West Wales too.
Find lots of these on a large unimproved Cornish field,along with horse mushrooms,shaggy parasols and various other coloured wax caps.
We have a small 2 acre field that we just hay every year S of Totnes, and having never see them before, is now covered with pink waxcaps. Lovely sight and there are a few other brownish versions as well. Rare?? Not here!