Leptonia is a genus of small and medium sized pink-spored mushrooms that contains over 100 species. Leptonias are saprotrophic and most grow on the ground, but some are found on wood. The cap is thin and can be convex, plane, often depressed and usually has small scales. The gills are widely spaced, usually having adnexed to adnate attachment (rarely they can be a little decurrent) and the stalk is fragile. The spores are angular and are flesh colored to pink. Some Leptonias have distinctive colors such as black, blue, green, yellow, and violet, but even these are difficult to identify.

Very little is known about the edibility of Leptonias, and some are poisonous. Data produced by the molecular study by Moncalvo in 2002, has species of Nolanea, Leptonia and Inocephalus interspersed with various pinkgill species in a broadly monophyletic entolomatoid group.^[1]

References

1. ^ Moncalvo JM, et al. 2002. One hundred and seventeen clades of euagarics. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 23:357-400. Available from: http://www.botany.utoronto.ca/faculty/moncalvo/117clade.pdf

• One hundred and seventeen clades of euagarics. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution