Details about map content are available here Click on the map dots to view record details.
Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) a dingy yellow brown to dull cinnamon cap that is fibrillose or when old scaly, 2) adnate, close, broad gills that are whitish becoming dingy dull clay-color, 3) a somewhat marginate-bulbed, sparsely fibrillose stem that is pallid to dingy brown or cap-colored, 4) a mild to farinaceous taste, 5) growth under conifers, 6) smooth spores, and 7) thick-walled cystidia. Smith(6) says it is common in the Pacific Northwest. Trudell(4) says "it appears to be restricted [in the Pacific Northwest] to west-side old-growth forests, where it is fairly common".
Inocybe olympiana was described from WA. Nishida lists it for CA. There are collections from BC and WA at the University of British Columbia and from WA, OR, ID, AK, and CA at the University of Washington.
Cap: (2)3-7cm across, obtuse to bell-shaped or convex, at times becoming nearly flat; dull cinnamon to dingy yellow-brown; innately fibrillose becoming +/- squamulose [finely scaly], (Smith(6)), either uniformly yellow-ocher or brown at center and yellow ocher at margin, (Stuntz), (2)3-7cm across, obtusely conic, becoming convex and finally nearly flat; varying from "sayal brown" to "buckthorn brown", darker when old; dry, innately fibrillose, becoming rimose [cracked] on the margin and fibrillose-scaly on the disc, when old the disc often becoming areolate-cracked, (Smith(40)), yellow-brown to tawny; shaggy scaly, (Trudell)
Flesh: thick; white, (Smith(40))
Gills: adnate, close, broad; whitish becoming dingy dull clay-color, (Smith(6)), a light color when young, (Stuntz), bluntly adnate or with a slight decurrent tooth, close, narrow or ventricose and broad; whitish to pallid, becoming "tawny-olive"; edge white-fimbriate [white-fringed], (Smith(40))
Stem: 6-12cm x 0.8-1.2cm, equal above a submarginate [somewhat marginate] bulb, solid; pallid but soon dingy brown or finally +/- colored as cap; sparsely fibrillose, (Smith(6)), yellow ocher, frequently darkening to smoky brown at base, (Stuntz), 6-12cm x 0.8-1.2cm, equal above a subemarginate to emarginate bulb, solid; whitish in upper part and sordid brown near the base at first, when old tawny overall; sparsely fibrillose in lower part and coarsely pruinose in upper part, (Smith(40)), "rounded, often whitish, bulb at the base", "powdery only at the apex", (Trudell)
Veil: no ring
Odor: not distinctive or subfarinaceous (Smith(40))
Taste: not distinctive or subfarinaceous, (Smith(40)), +/- farinaceous (Smith(6))
Microscopic spores: spores 7-9 x 4-5 microns; pleurocystidia 60-90 x 10-16 microns, thick-walled, (Smith(6)), spores 7-9 x 4-5 microns, inequilateral and somewhat ventricose, spore surface smooth; basidia 4-spored; pleurocystidia very abundant, 60-90 x 10-16 microns, thick-walled, apex incrusted, cheilocystidia similar but shorter, (Smith(40)), spores 7-9 x 4-5 microns, somewhat irregularly shaped; pleurocystidia large, thick-walled, bright yellow in KOH, narrowed apices encrusted with crystals, cheilocystidia thick-walled, narrowed apices encrusted with crystals, (Trudell)
Spore deposit: [presumably a shade of brown]
Habitat / Range
gregarious under conifers, (Smith(6)), under conifers (Stuntz), gregarious under fir (Smith(40))
Similar Species
Inocybe subochracea (Peck) Peck [in eastern North America] is similar, but I. olympiana differs in color, the more or less emarginate bulbous stipe, the much larger stature, and the distinctly fibrillose-scaly cap, (Smith(40), who notes "A different disposition of it may be desirable when more is known of the variations of I. subochracea in different regions." [Latin name italicized]). I. subochracea is smaller, "but otherwise very similar, and critical study is needed to assess the relationship between the two species; if only one species is involved, then I. subochracea would have priority", (Trudell, Latin name italicized).
