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

144

The North American Species of Pholiota

Pileus 6-20 mm broad, convex to obtuse, becoming broadly convex
to nearly plane in age, surface glabrous and hygrophanous, margin
faintly fringed with fibrils at the time the veil breaks, color pale to
medium yellow with marginal area olivaceous in age when wet, paler
yellow faded or often retaining an olive cast. Context thin, soft, pale
yellow, odor and taste not distinctive.
Lamellae broad, adnate, subdistant, whitish to pallid yellowish at
first, gradually becoming clay color to nearly wood-brown, edges at times
whitish fimbriate.
Stipe 4-10 cm long, 1.5-2.5 mm thick, equal, tubular, strict to
flexuous, fragile, pallid above at first but soon yellowish, silky above,
with fibrillose flecs downward from the remains of the thin veil, becoming tawny from the base upward in aging.
Spores 8-11 (12) x 5-6 (7) /f, dull cinnamon brown in deposit, pale
tawny in KOH under microscope and scarcely darker in Melzer's sol.,
smooth, apex obscurely truncate from an apical pore less than 1 /u wide,
wall less than 0.5 /u thick, shape in face view ovate to subelliptic, in profile mostly elliptic.
Basidia 28-32 x 8-9 u, 4-spored, clavate, yellow in KOH. Pleurocystidia of two types: 1) chrysocystidia 26-34 X 8-12 /u, and 2) leptocystidia 30-36 x 5-9 Fp, fusoid-ventricose, apex obtuse. Caulocystidia
none found on specimens examined.
Gill trama of parallel to subparallel non-gelatinous hyphae with
yellow to rusty walls in KOH. Pileus with a poorly organized cutis of
non-gelatinous hyphae 2.5-4 p, wide, hyphae yellow in KOH, smooth or
obscurely asperulate; hypodermium of inflated hyphal cells up to 18 pu
diam., walls yellow to pale fulvous in KOH and not or only very obscurely roughened. Context hyphae thin-walled, smooth, yellow in KOH.
Clamp connections regularly present.
HABIT, HABITAT, AND DISTRIBUTION: Scattered to gregarious on Sphagnum during late summer and fall, across the continent wherever the
proper habitat is found. We have examined specimens from Sweden as
well as North America.
OBSERVATIONS: Smith (1951) placed this in Naematoloma but when
one compares the population of North American Pholiota species with
those of Naematoloma for the same region it is very clear that the only
difference between the two genera is in the color of the spore deposit.
Hence we have transferred this species to the group where people expect
to find it.
MATERIAL EXAMINED: MICHIGAN: type of Naucoria obtusissima;
Homola 1054; Kauffman 10-20-06, Rock River, 1929; Smith 33-778, 33-821,
33-989, 6123, 14942, 31898, 31899, 32020, 42207, NEW YORK: House,
1915; Smith 335, 372, 922. OREGON: Kauffman, 1922; Smith 27655, Oct.
1952. TENNESSEE: Hesler 14250, 17198. WASHINGTON: Smith 9-25 -35, 12062, 14800, 39807, 40263, 40876, 40884, 48039. WEST VIRGINIA: