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

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The North American Species of Pholiota

Stipe about 8 cm long, 9 mm thick, solid, equal, pale dingy greenish
yellow with base dull clay-color, surface below veil-line decorated by
fibrillose squamules or lacerate-fibrillose, pruinose above veil-line.
Spores 5-6 X 4-4.8 L, smooth, apical pore distinct and larger spores
obscurely truncate, in face view elliptic to subglobose, in profile about
the same, pale dull tawny in KOH, paler in Melzer's reagent, wall about
0.25 F thick.
Basidia 4-spored, 18-25 x 5-6.5 /u, subcylindric, pale ochraceous as
revived in KOH or hyaline, appearing as if subgelatinous as revived in
KOH (wall outline soon less distinct than walls of tramal hyphae).
Pleurocystidia 36-54 x 8-13,/, fusoid to fusoid-ventricose, the neck often
drawn out to a crooked filamentose projection with a subacute apex;
walls thin, smooth, hyaline; content showing a refractive-amorphous
inclusion of various shapes and orange-brown in Melzer's reagent, sometimes the refractive body extending the length of the cell. Cheilocystidia
versiform variable in size, the capitate cells with a head up to 12-15 FL
and with the wall yellow as well as slightly thickened, otherwise thinwalled, hyaline and smooth. Caulocystidia numerous, versiform and
variable in size, the large vesiculose cells up to 20 /u in diam., mostly
with smooth hyaline thin walls; content homogeneous.
Gill trama of parallel smooth-walled hyphae the walls thin to slightly
thickened, cells becoming inflated and greatly elongated; subhymenium
cellular, of hyaline non-gelatinous hyphae. Pileus cutis with a thin
pellicle of gelatinous to subgelatinous hyphae 2-4 i, diam. and hyaline
to yellowish in KOH, walls with incrusting plates of pale yellowish pigment; hypodermial region of floccose hyphae with some cells having
slightly thickened walls but region not highly colored. Context of
voluminous hyphal cells (12-30 I) with "colloidal" content in KOH and
bright orange in Melzer's reagent. Clamp connections present.
HABIT, HABITAT, AND DISTRIBUTION: Solitary on an old hardwood
stump near Pontiac, Mich. Sept. 17, 1965, Smith 72658, type.
OBSERVATIONS: The fusoid chrysocystidia and the yellow-capitate
cheilocystidia are an unusual set of features sufficient to distinguish a
species. In the type of P. angustipes the cystidia are difficult to find and
when found vary more to the clavate or filamentose condition. Overholts
failed to note them.
Subgenus Flammuloides Subg. nov.
Pileus viscidus vel glutinosus, glaber vel floccoso-squamulosus. Stipes
glaber vel fibrillosus vel subsquamosus. Pleurocystidia conspicua. Subhymenium gelatinosum vel subgelatinosum, rare non-gelatinosum.
Typus: Pholiota subfulva.
Pileus viscid to glutinous from a gelatinous layer in the cuticle,
hyphal walls usually gelatinizing, glabrous to merely virgate with fibrils,