A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1467 entries
stipe
A stipe is a stalk. In a mushroom, it is the stem supporting the cap, and its features are among the primary identification characters: whether it carries a ring, whether it has a sac or a swelling at the base, whether it is hollow or solid, fibrous or brittle. In a kelp, it is the flexible stem-like section between the holdfast and the blades, built to bend rather than to hold rigid.
Etymology
The word is Latin for a stalk, stem, or tree trunk, and it is the same root behind stipule, the small leafy appendage at the base of a leaf stalk. Botany and mycology both use it in preference to stem because a mushroom stipe and a kelp stipe are not stems in the plant sense at all, and the separate word keeps the distinction visible.
Notes
The base of the stipe is where the most important mushroom characters are, which is why the rule is to dig rather than cut. An Amanita carries a sac below ground and the site’s death cap, destroying angel, blusher, and panther cap entries all turn on it. Kelp stipes carry growth rings in some species and can be aged like a tree.