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

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The North American Species of Pholiota

leaving a glabrous margin, scales "cinnamon-buff" to "clay-color" and
becoming dull tawny at maturity (light to dark yellowish brown), pale
yellow between the scales, or in age pale greenish yellow along the margin. Context moderately thick and pliant, pale yellowish; odor none (or
garlic in Smith 35793, 50928, 51814, 59711; of onion in Smith 51425,
51602, 52961), taste mild or slightly rancid.
Lamellae bluntly adnate to somewhat arcuate and with a decurrent
line or tooth, close to crowded, narrow, pale yellowish when young, soon
more or less sordid greenish yellow ("Isabella color"), and finally sordid
rusty brown, edges even.
Stipe 4-10(12) cm long, 4-12 (15) mm thick, equal or nearly so,
at times tapered to a long strigose pointed base, solid, dry, yellowish
within, surface covered with recurved pale tawny scales up to the annular zone, annulus often evanescent but sometimes membranous and
persistent (and then pileus margin not conspicuously appendiculate).
Spores (5) 6-7.5 (8) x 3.8-4.5 Fu, smooth, apical pore distinct but
apex not truncate; shape in face view elliptic to ovate, in profile obscurely
inequilateral to bean-shaped; dull tawny in KOH and near cinnamon in
Melzer's reagent, wall about 0.25,F thick.
Basidia (16) 20-25 X 5-7 /u, 4-spored, clavate, hyaline in KOH,
yellowish in Melzer's reagent. Pleurocystidia present as chrysocystidia
(26) 30-48 X (6) 8-16 IL, clavate to clavate-mucronate, apex papillate
or drawn into a distinct projection, walls thin and smooth, refractive
inclusion hyaline in KOH and dextrinoid in Melzer's reagent. Second
type elliptic to oval-pedicellate or clavate, 30-45 x 9-14 /u, hyaline and
evenly refractive throughout in KOH, yellowish in Melzer's reagent;
walls thin and smooth. Cheilocystidia 18-43 x 5-15 Ls, subfusoid, fusoidventricose, clavate or clavate-mucronate, some with highly refractive
context. Caulocystidia present as filamentose-clavate cells 6-9 /L wide at
apex, content homogeneous.
Gill trama of parallel floccose hyphae 5-8 /A broad or in age more
inflated, walls thin smooth and hyaline, yellowish in KOH and Melzer's
reagent; subhymenium of narrow (2-4 /t) gelatinous hyphae in a distinct layer. Pileus cutis a "collapsed" trichodermium of septate brown
hyphae with smooth to incrusted walls, the terminal cell of a hypha
clavate, subcylindric or fusoid-ventricose (cystidioid) 50-70 x 10-20 /.u
Clamp connections present but not always abundant. All hyphae inamyloid.
HABIT, HABITAT, AND DISTRIBUTION: Caespitose on living conifer and
hardwood trees, at the base of living or (ead trees, or on logs and stumps,
Michigan, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Wyoming; also reported by
Overholts (1927) from Maine, Massachusetts, New York, District of
Columbia, Pennsylvania; and from Wisconsin by Harper (1913); and
from Canada.
OBSERVATIONS: This is a showy, wood-inhabiting, conspicuously scaly
Pholiota, with a dry pileus. The taste becomes more disagreeable as the