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

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The North American Species of Pholiota

2. Gill margins not conspicuously crenulate; spores 7-10 X 5-6.5,/......................................................................... S tirp s D estru en s
Stirps Destruens
1. Stipe not staining yellow when handled.P. destruens var. destruens
1. Stipe readily staining yellow when handled..................................................................................................................... P. d estru en s v a r. e d m u n d ii
57. Pholiota destruens (Brond.) Gillet Champ Fr. p. 442. 1876.
Agaricus destruens Brondeau, Plant Crypt. Agen. pl. 6, 1828-30.
Dryophila destruens (Brond.) Quelet, Enchir. Fung. p. 67. 1886.
var. destruens
Illustrations: Text figs. 56-58; pls. 21-23.
Pileus (6) 8-16 (20) cm broad, convex when young, expanding to
broadly convex, rarely umbonate, viscid, pallid to whitish, or creamy to
ocher, at times gradually darkening on the disc throughout to avellaneous, wood-brown, or "Dresden brown" ((lark yellow-brown), conspicuously decorated with the whitish to dingy buff remains of a copious veil
in the form of floccose scales or patches which may become matted down
in age or be washed off entirely, margin shaggy from the copious veil
remnants. Context thick, firm, white; odor not distinctive (usually fungoid), taste slightly disagreeable but hardly distinctive.
Lamellae adnate to sinuate, broad, close, white when young but
gradually becoming deep rusty cinnamon from the spores, edges even.
Stipe central to eccentric, 5-12(18) cm long, 1-3 cm thick at apex,
enlarged downward and (2) 5-7 cm thick at the base, clavate to equal,
hard, solid, white at first, brownish at least below in age (especially if
water-soaked), copiously decorated with the remains of the thick, white,
floccose veil as scales or patches up to the floccose-cottony evanescent
annulus, silky above.
Spore deposit "cinnamon-brown"; spores 7-9.5 x 4-5.5 /L, smooth,
apex in some obscurely truncate from a distinct apical pore, near cinnamon brown as revived in KOH, paler in Melzer's reagent, wall appreciably thickened (up to 0.5 p)), in face view elliptic to ovate, in profile
somewhat inequilateral to elliptic, apiculus not conspicuous.
Basidia 28-35 X 5-7 p., mostly 4-spored, clavate, hyaline in KOH,
faintly yellow in Melzer's reagent. Pleurocystidia none. Cheilocystidia
25-34 (66) X 4-9 p., cylindric, narrowly clavate, or cylindric-capitate,
walls smooth, hyaline and thin, content homogeneous. Caulocystidia
abundant, vesiculose and up to 22 /p diam; clavate and up to 18 /, and
variable in length or as chains of broadly ellipsoid cells 10-15 p, diam.,
all elements hyaline in KOH, thin-walled and content homogeneous.
Gill trama of parallel hyphae 4-9 /x wide but cells becoming more