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

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The North American Species of Pholiota

157. Pholiota sphagnophila (Pk.) comb. nov.
Naucoria sphagnophila Peck, Bull. N.Y. State Mus. 139: 45. 1910.
Illustrations: Text figs. 347-349.
Pileus 1.2-2.5 cm convex becoming nearly plane, surface minutely
appressed fibrillose to faintly squamulose, hygrophanous, tinged flesh
color when young and moist, pallid when faded but near pinkish buff in
dried material, grayish-ochraceous to rusty-brown when mature.
Lamellae thin, narrow, crowded, subsinuate, unequal, edges uneven,
yellowish, becoming ferruginous.
Stipe 2.5-4.5 cm long, 2-3 mm thick, equal, flexuous, solid or at
length hollow, yellowish, with a slight floccose tomentum at apex, whitetomentose at base, evenly pale pinkish buff or pinkish buff as dried, as
dried thinly coated to near apex with grayish-pallid fibrils, dark fulvous
in KOH.
Spores 7-9 x 4-5 Fu, smooth, apical pore present but minute (no wall
thickening at apex); shape in face view ovate to nearly elliptic, in profile
somewhat inequilateral to nearly bean-shaped (ventral line straighter
than dorsal line); wall about 0.3 /u thick; color in KOH bright ochraceous
tawny singly but fulvous in masses, in Melzer's reagent merely slightly
duller than in KOH.
Basidia 4-spored, 18-26 X 6-8 it, subclavate, ochraceous in KOH
and Melzer's reagent. Pleurocystidia 42-73 x 7-12 a, neck 5-8 /i wide
and apex obtuse, narrowly fusoid-ventricose, content ochraceous in KOH
and homogeneous to refractive granular, in Melzer's reagent often granular and )right yellow but in some homogeneous; wall thin, exterior
often coated with dried coagulated remains of mucilaginous material.
Cheilocystidia subvesiculose to fusoid-ventricose, mostly with ochraceous
content, wall with adhering mucilaginous material or smooth. Caulocystidia none found.
Gill trama a central area of apparently interwoven floccose smooth
hyphae with thin weakly ochraceous walls in KOH, cells becoming
variously inflated; subhymenium apparently gelatinous and of narrow
interwoven hyphae. Pileus cutis a surface layer of narrow (3-5 p.),
smooth scarcely gelatinous hyaline (in KOH) hyphae with thin walls;
this intergrading with a tangled layer of wider heavily incrusted rusty
brown hyphae at most subgelatinous next to the smooth-walled layer.
Context of pale ochraceous thin-walled mostly smooth hyphae with inflating cells. Clamp connections present. All hyphae inamyloid.
HABIT, HABITAT, AND DISTRIBUTION: Riley's Bog, Stowe, Mass., 30 July
1909, S. Davis (type). Apparently known only from type locality.
OBSERVATIONS: This is a slender Pholiota like P. pulchella, but there
is little resemblance between the two microscopically. P. sphagnophila
features a very weak development of hyphal gelatinization in the cuticular area of the pileus, the spores lack the thickening around the apical
pore which is present in the closely related P. sphagnicola, it has promi