By Jeaniewilk
United Kingdom 
Please can anyone help/ I found these mushrooms in amongst sickly-looking paeonies today. Please can anyone identify them and tell me how to dispose of them and the soil. The soil looks like ash/cinders from a distance. It is very dry and like dry pulped flaky paper in texture. It all stinks! And the mushrooms are bluish/purple toxic looking. They have colonised an area of 3m2 and the infected soil goes to a depth of about 5 inches. Should I treat like Honey FUngus? JW
4 Nov, 2009
Answers
yes' I think that you are right Cestina
4 Nov, 2009
Well Cestina, all I can say is if you don't know.....
5 Nov, 2009
Thank you Fractal - I do in fact sometimes go to a higher authority and we did have a slight disagreement about this one because the Czech Blewits are really blue all over and do not have tan coloured caps. But I showed her my trusty Roger Phillips book and we agreed in the end.....
11 Nov, 2009
Well it certainly isn't honey fungus and it may have nothing at all to do with the plants being sick.
Identifying from that photo is hard, can't see the colour of the cap on the fully grown one, and the picture is dark, but the first thing that came to mind is the Wood Blewit,Lepista Nuda, which can be found in gardens.
Anyone else care to hazard a guess? I could be wildly out.....there is a purple Cortinarius......
4 Nov, 2009