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

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The North American Species of Pholiota

Phaeomarasmius curcuma (Berk. 8c Curt.) Singer, Schw. Zeitschr. Pilzk.
34: 60. 1956.
Illustrations: Text figs. 22-23.
var curcuma
Pileus 10-20 (35) mm broad, obtusely conic when young, expanding
to broadly campanulate to convex or finally nearly plane, surface dry and
appearing echinate (with minute erect squamules), toward margin appearing granular and squamules poorly formed, color bay to rusty-fulvous
("bay" becoming "amber-brown") finally ochraceous tawny, evenly
colored. Context thin, lax, pale dingy ochraceous when mature, odor
and taste none; olive with FeSO4.
Lamellae close, moderately broad, bluntly adnate, dingy ochreyellow scarcely changing, edges concolorous with faces.
Stipe 1.5-3 cm long, about 1.5 mm thick at the slightly enlarged apex,
dingy brownish and in age becoming darker rusty brown from the base
upward, thinly covered by appressed buff-colored fibrils from a very thin
veil.
Spores 7-9 x 3.5-4.5 (5) /i, smooth, with a minute apical pore, in
profile slightly bean-shaped to obscurely inequilateral, in face view elliptic
to ovate, tawny in KOH and paler and dingier in Melzer's sol.
Basidia 4-spored, 18-23 x 5-7 j,, narrowly clavate to subcylindric
when sporulating, yellowish hyaline in KOH. Pleurocystidia none. Cheilocystidia 26-40(50) x 8-15 Lu, utriform, broadly fusoid-ventricose, subclavate, thin-walled hyaline to yellow from pigment in the walls, smooth.
Gill trama of gigantic hyphal cells with thin non-gelatinous smooth
walls yellow in KOH, the cells 10-25 u, wide and greatly elongated; subhymenium indistinct. Pileus cutis a trichodermium of hyphae with inflated cells up to 20 pu or more in diam., the walls of the cells thin but
yellow in KOH and with coarse patches of rusty cinnamon pigment incrusting them; hyphae of subcutis narrower and some tubular but with
the walls mostly heavily incrusted also. Context hyphae thin-walled,
smooth, ochraceous in KOH. All hyphae inamyloid. Clamp connections
present.
HABIT, HABITAT, AND DISTRIBUTION: Solitary to scattered on aspen
logs during the summer and fall, South Carolina, Michigan, and
Wyoming.
OBSERVATIONS: The features which at once distinguish this species
from P. granldosa are the mostly hyaline utriform to broadly ventricose
cheilocystidia and the very coarse pigment incrustations on the cells of
the pileus trichodermium. The germ pore is minute but readily visible
especially on the larger spores. The cells of the trichodermial hyphae
vary from narrowly ventricose to subglobose, and the terminal cell is
often elliptic to clavate-not fusoid-ventricose. Phaeomarasmius subcrinaceellus Singer is indicated as having clavate cheilocystidia and the