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

Smith ~ Hesler

55

rarely merely ochraceous; surface dry, granulose to unpolished (in age
when most of the veil particles have weathered away); margin often
appendiculate with veil remnants. Context pallid and unchanging when
cut or bruised, firm, moderately thick in the disc; odor mild to slightly
pungent, taste mild to slightly astringent.
Lamellae pallid in buttons, becoming more or less concolorous with
or darker than pileus at maturity, adnate or at times with a short decurrent tooth, moderately broad, close, edges entire and concolorous.
Stipe 10-15 (25) cm long, (1.5) 3-5 (6) cm in diam. at apex, enlarging downward to subclavate; more or less concolorous with the pileus
though sometimes darker at the apex; surface dry and unpolished; smooth
and glabrous above the annulus, below the latter peronate with a covering similar to that of the pileus; annulus flaring, membranous, persistent
to mid-maturity, finally becoming pendulous and disappearing in extreme
age; the peronate sheath separable to the base of the stipe. Context
whitish or somewhat streaked with orange down the center and the cortex longitudinally fibrous, stuffed becoming hollowed; base of stipe white
mycelioid and with a few short white poorly developed rhizomorphs.
Spore deposit light yellow-brown to orange-buff. Spores 10.7-13 (14)
x 5-6 u, yellowish to clay-color in KOH and with one large central oil
drop, somewhat elliptic in face view, in profile somewhat inequilateral,
inamyloid, smooth or some with minute markings, wall thin and many
spores collapsing, no germ pore evident under oil immersion.
Basidia hyaline to pale brownish in KOH, usually 4-spored, clavate,
thin-walled, occasionally with a highly refractive body as revived in KOH.
Pleurocystidia absent or rarely clavate-mucronate and brownish in KOH,
measuring 26-30 X 7.5-8.5 pL. Cheilocystidia none (edge entirely fertile).
Gill trama of subparallel to parallel hyphae with yellowish to brownish thin to slightly thickened walls as revived in KOH; subhymenium of
narrow (2-3 /.) non-gelatinous hyaline hyphae. Epicutis of pileus of inflated often isodiametric cells 12-25,F diam., smooth or with one to
several short finger-like or knob-like projections over the apex of the
terminal cells of the chain, the walls thin to slightly thickened, pale
yellowish in Melzer's reagent but orange-cinnamon in KOH. Clamp connections present.
HABIT, HABITAT, AND DISTRIBUTION: Caespitose-gregarious often near
the edges of roads under Alnus, September to October, Pacific Northwest
to Alaska, rare, but when it fruits it is found in quantity.
OBSERVATIONS: As is indicated in the synonymy, this species has been
placed in a number of genera. We did not suspect what we now regard
as its true relationships until after completing our study of this subgenus.
Both P. erinaceella and P. granulosa in particular have basically the same
type of pileus epicutis with the cells having the same type of KOH
reaction. It can be characterized as the Cystoderma-type, which implies
that not all the cuticular cells are sphaerocysts. In Flavidula there are