Summary: Features include 1) flat, waxy growth on wood, mostly coniferous, 2) color that is whitish maturing to ochraceous, pale brown or reddish brown, the surface porose when dry, dotted by reddish brown matter under a 50x lens, 3) allantoid or sometimes elliptic spores that smooth and inamyloid, with oily inclusions, 4) acute, fusiform cystidia that project, 5) capitate hyphal ends in the hymenium and context that are apically surrounded by excreted, reddish brown matter, and 6) a monomitic hyphal system with small clamp connections. Ginns(5) notes that de Vries found some specimens to have elliptic as well as allantoid spores, and therefore de Vries placed H. tsugae (distinguished by spore shape) in synonymy.
Microscopic: SPORES 7-9(10) x 2.5-3.5(4) microns, allantoid, smooth, inamyloid, thin-walled, with oily inclusions in protoplasm; BASIDIA 4-spored, 22-25(30) x 5-6 microns, clavate, with basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA projecting, 50-60(90) x 6-8 microns, fusiform, acute, thin-walled, homogeneous, also cystidia-like capitate HYPHAL ENDS in the hymenium and context, "apically surrounded by excreted, reddish brown matter, at first as a rounded body, at last irregular and in the slides usually crushed to pieces"; HYPHAE monomitic: hyphae 3-4 microns wide, closely interwoven, richly branched, thin-walled, with small clamp connections at all septa; on small branches from the hyphae there are small bladder-like echinulate cells about 10 x 5 microns, which "may be present but difficult to observe", (Eriksson)
Notes: Peniophorella pallida has been found in BC, ID, ON, PQ, AZ, FL, NC, NH, NM, and TN, (Ginns). It has also been found in Denmark and Sweden, (Eriksson).
Habitat and Range
Habitat
on decayed barkless wood, mostly of conifers but also of hardwoods, (Eriksson); on bark; trunk; tree base; stump; log; Abies (fir), Pinus (pine), Picea (spruce), Juniperus (juniper), Tsuga (hemlock), Populus trichocarpa (Black Cottonwood), Rubus spectabilis (salmonberry), associated with a white rot, (Ginns), all year (Buczacki)