The North American species of Pholiota, by Alexander H. Smith and L. R. Hesler.

260

The North American Species of Pholiota

The following description is adopted from Kauffman's original account and maintains his wording to a great extent.
Pileus 4-8 cm broad, fleshy, campanulate-expanded to almost plane,
obtuse or obsoletely umbonate, center colored with "burnt sienna" (R),
tawny-olive or paler on margin, with a glutinous toughish separable
pellicle when wet, at first with veil remnants near the membranous and
even margin. Context avellaneous, 2-4 mm thick, odor strong, Inocybelike or of iodiform; taste tardily disagreeable.
Lamellae adnate with decurrent tooth, becoming slightly decurrent
in age, broad, narrowed in front, subventricose, close to crowded, "claycolor" (R) with fuscous tints when mature, edge entire, concolorous.
Stipe 5-7 cm long, 5-8 mm thick, rather slender, curved or flexuous,
equal or only slightly enlarged at base, peronate by an appressed fibrillose, rufescent-tinged veil to near apex, with an evanescently fibrillose
annulus, apex faintly yellowish, at first stuffed then hollow, whitish to
faintly yellowish within.
Spores 6-7 (8) x 4-5,u, elliptic to oval (almost corn-kernel shaped
in one view), fuscous in mass, pale fuscous-purplish under microscope,
smooth. Cystidia abundant on side and edges of gills, lanceolate, subventricose below, neck tapering to obtuse apex, hyaline, thin-walled,
60-65 x 9-16,t; basidia short, 16-18 x 4-5 /x, 4-spored.
Type collected under oak and Douglas fir, Takilma, Oregon, December 2, 1925, C. H. Kauffman.
The type specimens now have dark dull ochraceous tawny gills much
as in other species of subg. Flammuloides. The pileus is darker yellowbrown over the disc than over the margin and the latter is not at all
virgate-as is true for P. decorata. The spore print described by Kauffman
is not with the specimen, in fact we suspect that he observed the color
of the spore deposit either on the stipe apex or on spores deposited on a
second cap. If such is actually the case this might account for the fuscous
color as described by Kauffman. Certainly the basidiocarps now in the
type collection belong in Pholiota. Smith's study of the microscopic features of the type follows:
Spores 6-7.5 (8) x 4-5 u. smooth, lacking a distinct apical pore
(possibly a minute pore present); shape in face view ovate or varying
to elliptic, in profile obscurely inequilateral to slightly bean-shaped; color
ochraceous tawny in KOH, paler in Melzer's reagent; wall about 0.25 /.
thick.
Basidia 18-20 x 6-7 /l, 4-spored, short-clavate, hyaline in KOH,
yellowish in Melzer's reagent. Pleurocystidia 56-70 x 10-14 /., fusoidventricose, with subacute apex, walls often thickened to 1.5 p. ventricose
part and smooth, content as revived in KOH, yellowish-brown and
granular-amorphous (not a solid inclusion as in chrysocystidia). Cheilocystidia similar to pleurocystidia or shorter and walls often thin. Caulocvstidia none found.
Gill trama with a central strand of subparallel hyphae hyaline to