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

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The North American Species of Pholiota

Pileus (2) 4-8 cm broad, broadly convex when young, expanding
to broadly convex, or slightly umbonate, or plane, pale vinaceous brown
to dark vinaceous brown ("army-brown" to "fawn-color"), the margin
paler, the umbo slightly darker, viscid, smooth or somewhat papillate to
rugulose from wrinkling of the pellicle, glabrous. Context thick on the
disc, gradually thinner to the margin, white or whitish, soft and pliant;
odor fungoid, taste mild.
Lamellae bluntly adnate, with a decurrent tooth, or slightly depressed around the stipe, white, becoming dark avellaneous ("woodbrown"), close or nearly so, moderately broad, edges white-crenate.
Stipe 5-10 cm long, 4-10 mm thick, white and appressed-fibrillose
or floccose above the annulus, the lower portion discolored, or more rarely
yellowish, conspicuously scurfy below the annulus but the base nearly
glabrous, equal, hollow, usually the base with numerous white rhizomorphs. Veil forming a more or less median, broad, membranous, white,
persistent annulus, which is striate on the upper surface and white
floccose on the lower surface.
Spores "cinnamon-brown" in deposit (dark yellow-brown); 7-9 x
4-5.5 Lu, elliptic to ovate in face view, in profile subelliptic to obscurely
inequilateral, germ pore very minute (apex not truncate), in KOH dull
cinnamon, in Melzer's reagent about the same.
Basidia 25-32 X 6-8 /u, 4-spored, clavate, hyaline in KOH, yellowish
in Melzer's reagent. Pleurocystidia abundant, 30-50(60) x 5-12 A/,
clavate to mucronate, wall thin, smooth, and hyaline, content as revived
in KOH coagulated into a refractive amorphous mass usually resting in
upper third of cystidium, in Melzer's reagent this mass ochraceous to
orange-brown to dull red. Cheilocystidia 20-56 x 3-7 /u, filamentosesubcapitate, pedicel flexuous, smooth, thin-walled, content homogeneous.
Caulocystidia scattered to rare resembling cheilocystidia.
Gill trama parallel to somewhat interwoven, hyphae with smooth
hyaline thin walls (revived in KOH), cells short to elongated and in
age inflated; subhymenium cellular and narrow but in KOH subgelatinous. Pileus epicutis a thick (100 /u +) gelatinous layer of hyphae 1.5-3 /
diam. hyaline and smooth in KOH, interwoven; hymenopodium not
differentiated structurally or by color or at most the hyphal cells in the
region slightly more inflated. Context hyphae hyaline in KOH, floccose,
with thin smooth walls, cells inflated in age. Clamp connections present.
All hyphae non-amyloid.
HABIT, HABITAT, AND DISTRIBUTION: Solitary to scattered on debris,
under conifers, Washington, Oregon and California, during the fall.
OBSERVATIONS: This species is closely related to P. sipci; for further
comment see that species.
MATERIAL EXAMINED: CALIFORNIA: Smith 3625, 3911, 3914, 3943,
8235, 8372, 9383, 9444, 9476, 56087, 56543, 56913; OREGON: Gruber 14 -4; Sipe 135; Smith 20122, 20239, 24540, 24642, 24692, 24738, 24872, 27336;
13651, 13717, 13949, 14436, 14793, 16220, 17369, 17542.