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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) a dry, conic to umbonate, dry to viscid, smooth to fibrillose cap that is lilac when young but fades to a grayish white color, often with the umbo retaining brown or yellow colors around the umbo, 2) white flesh that does not change color when cut or bruised, 3) close, non-decurrent gills that are gray, turning brown with spores, 4) a clavate-bulbous stem that is lilac fading to whitish, the uppermost part pruinose, sometimes with a ring zone from the cortina, sometimes with colored fibrils, and sometimes with yellowish colors at the base, 5) a spermatic odor, 6) growth on the ground under conifers, and 7) smooth, mostly almond-shaped spores. Inocybe pallidicremea has been known under the misapplied name Inocybe lilacina which represents an eastern North American species. Matheny(12) circumscribed a phylogenetic Inocybe lilacina subgroup of their Inocybe geophylla group to include I. pallidicremea, Inocybe lilacina sensu stricto, Inocybe lilacina sensu Larsson I (European), Inocybe sublilacina, and Inocybe ionocephala (see SIMILAR). The description is derived from Matheny(12). There may be other members of the I. lilacina subgroup in the Pacific Northwest that have not yet been documented.
Collections were sequenced from BC, WA, NL, NS (isotype), AK, ME, and NY. The stated distribution includes AK, BC, WA, OR, WY, CO, and AZ, eastward to MI, NY, New England, and the eastern provinces NS (holotype) and NL. Collections were examined from NL, NS, ON, AZ, CO, ME, MI, OR, NY, and WA.
Gills: "adnexed, uncinate, or adnate", subventricose, close, with several tiers of subgills; "light gray to gray when young", becoming pale to brown when old; edges white-fringed
Stem: 3.5-6.0cm x 0.3-0.6cm at the top, clavate-bulbous towards the base where width is 0.7-0.9cm, flexuous, solid; "lilac to pale lilac at first, this soon fading and becoming whitish overall", rarely with grayish-brown streaks beneath the insertion of the cortina and above the base, "or with agglutinated gray fibrils above the base, the base itself (pale) yellow or with brownish-orange or grayish-yellow tones"; upper one eighth to one sixth pruinose, "more or less smooth towards the base or finely fibrillose"
Veil: cortina present, "cortinate fibrils collapsed and forming a ring zone at times or fugacious"
Odor: spermatic to strongly spermatic
Microscopic spores: spores (7)7.5-10.5(11) x 4.5-6.0 microns, "smooth, mostly amygdaliform or subamygdaliform, at times elliptical, apices often bluntly pointed or obtuse, apiculus small but distinctive, yellowish brown, slightly thick-walled"; basidia 4-spored, 29-33 x 8-10 microns, clavate, colorless; pleurocystidia 49-73 x 11-20 microns, "fusiform-ventricose, often with a slender basal pedicel, thick-walled" (walls 1.0-3.0 microns thick), colorless, "apices often bare or weakly crystalliferous"; cheilocystidia "similar to pleurocystidia but some shorter and more ventricose or saccate, densely arranged, paracystidia infrequent"; clamp connections present
Habitat / Range
scattered singly or in groups on soil, associated with conifers including Pseudotsuga (Douglas-fir), Picea (spruce), Tsuga (hemlock), and/or Pinus (pine); fruiting August to December (summer, fall, winter)
Similar Species
Inocybe pudica starts whitish and develops pinkish to reddish or orange stains on all parts. Inocybe ionocephala Matheny occurs in northern California and is distinguished from other North American species in the I. lilacina subgroup by its light grayish-lilac cap with a brownish disc and often robust stem that is white throughout (Matheny(12)). Inocybe sublilacina Matheny and A. Voitk is known from Colorado and Newfoundland-Labrador. It is comparatively rare and is separated phylogenetically from I. pallidicremea. The two are morphologically very similar; however, the spores of I. sublilacina are slightly larger on average and spores are more often elliptic in outline. (Matheny(12)). Inocybe lilacina in the sense of Matheny(12) has been documented only from the eastern United States - New York (holotype), North Carolina and Tennessee - thus overlapping with I. pallidicremea only in NY. It has a smaller fruitbody, "more intense dark violet pigmentation, and pinkish colors that tend to persist after drying." (Matheny(12)). I. pallidicremea resembles some lilac mushrooms in other genera but is distinguished by small size, umbonate cap, and dull brown spores. Similar Cortinarius species are usually larger and have rusty brown spores. See also SIMILAR section of Cortinarius alboviolaceus and Lepista nuda.
