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Species Information
Summary: Hypholoma subericaeum is characterized by 1) a tawny brown to reddish brown cap that is greasy or dry, 2) young gills that are pale gray to honey-colored without yellow color, 3) a long, pallid to brownish stem, 4) growth in wet depressions, and 5) small spores for a Hypholoma.
There are collections from BC at the University of British Columbia (Paul Kroeger collections PK5311 from Elgin Heritage Park 2007, PK3311 from Roberts Creek 2000 with Kye Goodwin, PK1420 from Meager Creek 1989). Redhead examined collections from ON and United Kingdom (England).
Cap: 1-4.7cm across, convex with incurved margin when young, becoming flat-convex and often subumbonate [somewhat umbonate]; "sienna centrally, marginally fulvous or later closer to ochreous"; lubricous to moist, rugose when old [wrinkled], initially opaque, becoming obscurely translucent-striate marginally, (Redhead), 3-5cm across, "fleshy, hemispherical to convex then plano-convex finally plane with obtuse umbo, tawny brown, smooth; non striate but soon striate with age, rust-color tinged fulvous or sienna, brightly coloured fading to ochre or sienna tinged olivaceous at centre when old"; humid [moist] to slightly greasy when fresh with or without scattered veil fragments, (Watling), 2-5cm across, domed; red-brownish, (Moser)
Flesh: fleshy, colored as surface, (Redhead), in stem pale yellowish, probably slightly darker in lower part, (Watling), yellowish (Moser)
Gills: "adnate, becoming slightly ventricose, moderately spaced", honey-colored when young, "later becoming motley [sic] and tinted faintly brownish vinaceous with paler whitish edges", (Redhead), sinuate-adnate; dirty white or grayish without trace of yellow then tinged olivaceous and finally dark gray lilac or purple brown, (Watling), pale gray, then gray-lilac, violet-gray, (Moser)
Stem: 3.5-7.5cm x 0.2-0.5cm, equal or widening slightly downward; "dry, silky striate and whitish up to a superior silky whitish annular zone when young, with age darkening to honey or ochreous, often with fawn tints basally, often covered with sparse minutely floccose veil remains, apically powdered, basally often slightly swollen and strigose", (Redhead), 2.5-8cm x 0.2-0.5cm, equal or widening slightly downwards, tough, hollow; pallid or white at top becoming pale brown, darker downwards; pruinose at top, silky-fibrillose when fresh then smooth, sometimes with scattered veil fragments, (Watling), 3-10cm x 0.2-0.5cm, yellowish-pallid; smooth, (Moser)
Veil: may leave scattered veil remnants on stem and cap, (Watling)
Odor: not distinct (Redhead, Watling)
Taste: not distinct (Redhead, Watling)
Microscopic spores: spores 8.5-9.2 x 4.3-5 microns, narrowly oval or almond-shaped, smooth, "with slightly thickened walls and a small germ pore, brown vinaceous in deposit", pale vinaceous brown in water, often with one droplet, with small apiculus; basidia 4-spored, 22-24 x 7-7.3 microns, clavate, colorless, with clamp connections; pleurocystidia scattered on gill faces and often concentrated in the intergill spaces, 30-40 x 8-10 microns, "clavate ventricose to clavate mucronate, thin-walled", colorless, "often appearing more like basidioles with homogeneous refractive contents, varying to typical chrysocystidia in which the refractive substance forms a central elongated irregular mass", cheilocystidia "abundant, forming a sterile edge", 19-32 x 7.5-10 microns, clavate to subspherical and rostrate, "varying to obtusely fusoid or less often subcapitate, the neck usually slightly undulated", thin-walled, colorless, smooth; cap cuticle "a thin but obvious gelatinous layer", hyphae 2-5 microns wide, filamentous, nearly colorless "to faintly brownish because of fine incrusting pigments", "the subpellis well developed, hyphae inflated", 5-13 microns wide; clamp connections mentioned for basidia, (Redhead), spores 7-10 x 4-5 microns; elliptic or oval; "thick-walled, lilaceous brown in water, darker and duller in alkali, with small but distinct germ pore"; basidia 4-spored, cylindric-clavate, colorless; pleurocystidia 25-40 x 7-11 microns, "broadly ventricose with broad contracted rounded apex and yellow inclusion in alkali"; cheilocystidia 25-40 x 4-5 microns, ventricose-cylindric, with narrowed obtuse apex 2.5-4 microns wide, colorless; cap cuticle of narrow, filamentous, radially arranged hyphae 2-3 microns wide, seated on wider hyphal units <20 microns wide; clamp connections present, (Watling), spores 7-9.5 x 4-5 microns (Moser)
Spore deposit: purple-brown (Buczacki)
Habitat / Range
densely gregarious to subcespitose on decaying, matted leaves of Carex comosa (longhair sedge) around bases of hummocks "in a small clearing in a hardwood swamp", (Redhead, Latin name in italics, who mentions that Kuehner(1936) "noted that the species often occurred in wet depressions in hardwood forests or at the edges of fields"), single or in groups "on peat or organic soil on heaths and moorlands and in wet base-poor pastures", (Watling(3) from British Isles), in a Scirpus marsh growing out of rotting herbaceous debris, (Squamish, BC); in a ditch filled with marsh vegetation, by a logging road, (Roberts Creek, BC), (Paul Kroeger), fall (Buczacki)
Similar Species
Hypholoma ericaeoides has yellow gills and larger spores (Watling). Hypholoma ericaeum (not confirmed for the Pacific Northwest) has larger spores 12-15 x 7-8 microns (given by Watling(3)) or 11-13.5 x 6.5-8 microns (given by Smith(25)).
