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

Smith ~ Hesler

93

veil when very young, smooth, lubricous to viscid from a more or less
separable pellicle (merely moist after heavy rains have washed off the
pellicle), margin closely translucent striate when moist, opaque when
faded. Context thin except in the disc, moderately soft, watery to moist
and pallid; odor weak, agreeably spicy (neither raphanoid nor farinaceous), taste mild or slightly unpleasant but not bitter.
Lamellae broadly adnate to subdecurrent when young, later usually
distinctly decurrent (more so than in other species), close to crowded,
broad in the inner third (~ 5 mm in a medium-sized mature cap),
pallid when young, developing a dull buff tinge and eventually becoming
almost "sayal-brown" (dull cinnamon).
Stipe 4-10 cm long, 2-12 mm thick, pallid at first over all except
basal portion, soon becoming brownish and finally blackish brown from
base upward, equal or nearly so, tapered toward the base at times, stuffed
becoming hollow, below the annulus covered almost to base with distinct
pallid to brownish recurved scales (scales sometimes indistinct in dried
material), base of stipe either naked or covered by a white velutinous
mycelial tomentum, somewhat silky-striate above annulus. Veil forming
an apical or subapical membranous annulus; annulus sometimes scaly
on the lower side, or at times ring merely a zone of fibrils.
Spore deposit cinnamon ("Verona-brown" to "cinnamon"); spores
5.5-7.5 x 3.7-4.5 (6) Jt, smooth, ovate in face view or subelliptic in profile, obscurely inequilateral to subelliptic; apex truncate from a welldeveloped pore; smooth, wall fairly thin, in cross section terete to slightly
compressed; pale tan in KOH, in Melzer's pale tawny to tawny.
Basidia 20-23 x 4-5 pt, 4-spored. Pleurocystidia none. Cheilocystidia
17-29 x 3.3-7 pt, abundant, thin-walled, hyaline in KOH, subcylindric
to fusoid-ventricose, some with a slight capitellum at apex or more or
less capitate from a mucilaginous secretion. Caulocystidia scattered to
fasciculate, sometimes apparently absent (always check young material),
more or less like cheilocystidia in size and shape.
Gill trama somewhat interwoven, hyphae 3-5 (12) pu broad, hyaline
and smooth in KOH or with brownish incrusting pigment on the walls
(more pronounced in age), walls slightly thickened as revived in KOH.
Pileus trama of interwoven, irregular, hyaline hyphae with inflated cells
and smooth walls at first, but in old basidiocarps with somewhat thickened walls. Pileus epicutis a gelatinous pellicle; hypodermium a region
of hyaline hyphae 2-3 ut diam. of brownish hyphae not structurally different from context. Clamp connections present.
HABIT, HABITAT, AND DISTRIBUTION: Caespitose to gregarious on hardwood logs, stumps or more rarely on buried wood, also abundant on
conifer wood in the Pacific Northwest; widely distributed in North
America.
OBSERVATIONS: One naturally expects that a species with such a
scaly stipe would at first have veil remnants on the pileus, but we have
never found it this way. It is one of the most prolific species we have,