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

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The North American Species of Pholiota

OBSERVATIONS: This is a moderately large fungus, with a fibrillosesubscaly, yellow pileus, with a slight fragrance, narrow gills, and large,
yellowish, subvelutinous stipe which is clavate below. The colored thickwalled fibrils on the stipe are most unusual.
89. Pholiota oregonensis Murrill, Mycologia 4: 262. 1912.
Hypodendrum oregonense Murrill, Mycologia 4: 262. 1912.
Illustrations: Text fig. 181.
Pileus 5 cm or broader when mature, convex, obtuse, ochraceous-buff
to ochraceous-tawny, glabrous, dry, margin strongly incurved. Context
thin, cremeous; taste nutty or amygdaline in dried specimens.
Lamellae adnate, yellow or yellowish brown, becoming darker,
medium-distant to distant, strongly interveined.
Stipe 6-10 cm long, 8-20 mm thick, yellowish above, fulvous below,
with small, scattered, unicolorous, subfloccose, evanescent scales pointing
upward, terete or compressed, equal or enlarged upward or downward,
solid. Veil forming a superior or nearly apical, irregular, yellowish white
annulus.
Spores 7.5-10 x 4-5 (6) p,, smooth, germ pore very minute; shape
in face view more or less distinctly ovate, in profile inequilateral to obscurely so; color in KOH dull cinnamon, in Melzer's reagent dark reddish tawny (dextrinoid).
Basidia 25-34 X 5-7.5 /u, narrowly clavate, usually with a long
narrow (2-3,u) pedicel, 4-spored, hyaline to yellowish in KOH and
Melzer's reagent. Pleurocystidia none. Cheilocystidia 23-33 x 3-9 /a,
cylindric-flexuous to more or less clavate, hyaline, thin-walled, content
not distinctive. Caulocystidia present as clavate end-cells of filamentous
hyphae, not distinctive.
Gill trama of interwoven refractive hyphae with cinnabar to orangeyellow content in Melzer's reagent, "colloidal" in KOH, walls thin and
smooth; subhymenium of narrow interwoven somewhat gelatinous hyphae. Pileus cuticle a well defined layer of subgelatinous refractive narrow hyphae 2-3 /. diam. hyaline to yellowish in KOH and Melzer's
reagent; hypodermial region of ochraceous hyphae with colloidal-appearing content as revived in KOH, in Melzer's this layer and context hyphae
with cinnabar to ochraceous or orange content. Clamp connections
present.
HABIT, HABITAT, AND DISTRIBUTION: On a living willow, Oregon,
November. Known from the type (Murrill, 754).
OBSERVATIONS: This species is likely to be mistaken in the field for
Gymnopilus spectabilis but the latter is easily distinguished in the laboratory by the rough spores. Overholts (1928) pointed out the similarity.
The dextrinoid spores, bright colors and lack of pleurocystidia place the
species immediately in stirps Alnicola. The pleurocystidia observed by
Overholts were more than likely immature basidia. The same situation