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

Smith ~ Hesler

57

broadly convex or nearly plane, rarely with a slight obtuse umbo; surface
dry and granular-squamulose with tufted squamules soon breaking into
a powder, margin for a short time appendiculate with veil fragments;
color evenly dark rusty brown ("auburn") or "Brussel's brown" or
"Mars brown"), in age the ochraceous ground color showing to give a
paler yellow-brown effect. Context olive-yellowish fading to dingy buff;
thin midway to margin; with FeSO4 olive, with KOH, dark red-brown;
odor slight; taste metallic to bitterish.
Lamellae pallid to pale cinnamon-buff, becoming pale ochraceous
tawny or finally dull tawny, broad, adnexed at maturity crowded, edges
crenulate.
Stipe 3-4 (6) cm long, 2.5-4 mm thick, equal, stuffed becoming
hollow, coated with granules and squamules like those on pileus, apical
region above veil line pallid and pruinose, downward slowly glabrescent
as veil remnants disappear; annulus merely a zone of fibrils to rarely
submembranous.
Spore deposit pale dingy cinnamon; spores 6-8 (9) x 4-4.5 Fu,
smooth, wall slightly thickened (about 0.25 pt), dingy cinnamon as
revived in KOH, in Melzer's reagent more ochraceous, suboblong to
elliptic in face view, slightly bean-shaped in profile, no apical pore present as seen under an ordinary oil immersion lens.
Basidia 4-spored, 18-23 x 5-6 u,, narrowly clavate, yellow in KOH
and also in Melzer's reagent. Pleurocystidia none. Cheilocystidia abundant (40) 50-115 x 3.5-6 X 9-16,u, cylindric to flexuous with an apical
capitellum, thin-walled, smooth, content hyaline or ochraceous, rarely
narrowly clavate. Caulocystidia present over apical region of stipe and
shaped like the cheilocystidia or more of them narrowly clavate, measuring up to 120 Mu long and many with slightly thickened ochraceous-tawny
walls in the lower half as revived in KOH, smooth or with some debris
adhering.
Pileus cutis of chains of inflated to subglobose cells 18-36 x 12-20 pu
and readily disarticulating, with rusty cinnamon walls in KOH and
rather heavy patches of rusty cinnamon incrustation, in Melzer's the walls
pale colored and the incrusting material inconspicuous. Hyphae of content floccose and interwoven, yellowish to hyaline in Melzer's or KOH.
Clamp connections present. All hyphae inamyloid.
HABIT, HABITAT, AND DISTRIBUTION: Solitary to gregarious on rotting
hardwood logs, northern United States and Canada, particularly abundant in old hardwood slashings late in the summer or early fall; Overholts reported it from Missouri.
OBSERVATIONS: The large capitate to subcapitate cheilocystidia, the
more or less isodiametric cells of the pileus epicutis which soon disarticulate, and the even colors all make this one of our most distinctive
species. Pholiota muricata is said to differ in having distinctly yellow
gills when young. This is not the color in the material we have seen of
Peck's species. In veil characters and cheilocystidia, however, the two