E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
Laxitextum bicolor is easily recognized due to its brown and white color and soft consistency. Features include 1) resupinate growth on decayed hardwood, or bent outward to form cap on vertical surfaces, 2) a cap that when present is brown, tomentose or with appressed hairs, often subzonate and radially striate, 3) spore-bearing surface whitish, smooth, with scattered small tubercles, 4) soft though tough consistency when fresh, crustose and brittle when dry, 5) spores that are elliptic, finely spiny (also called verrucose), and amyloid, 6) gloeocystidia that when young are fusiform and often with a moniliform tip, (when old tubular and obtuse), the cystidia enclosed or protruding somewhat, 7) a monomitic hyphal system, with hyphae brown in the subiculum and colorless in the subhymenium, the hyphae with clamp connections.

Laxitextum bicolor has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, MB, NS, ON, PQ, AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IA, IN, KY, LA, MD, ME, MN, MO, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, VT, WI, and WV, (Ginns), NM (Phillips), Europe including Switzerland (Breitenbach), and Scandinavia, specifically Norway and Finland, (Eriksson).

Fruiting body:
resupinate [growing flat] to effuso-reflexed on vertical surfaces [bent outward to form a cap], attached tightly to substrate, forming coherent, crustose patches 0.1-0.2cm thick and several centimeters across, consistency "soft, rather tough, when dry crustose and brittle"; underside (= upper side of cap when formed) brown, tomentose; spore-bearing surface white when young, then cream, "smooth, with scattered small tubercles, also somewhat undulating", margin distinctly bounded, (Breitenbach), resupinate or reflexed; in section about 0.1cm thick, upper side of cap brown, "in young specimens finely tomentose, in old specimens with more appressed hyphal hairs, often subzonate and radially striate"; spore-bearing surface when young and fresh pure white, "darkens slightly to cream and latterly becomes pale brownish", smooth and bald, "when dried more or less cracked"; in section subiculum brown and subhymenial part whitish; "margin white and finely fibrillose in young specimens", (Eriksson), spore deposit white (Buczacki)

Microscopic:
SPORES 3.5-4 x 2.5-3 microns, elliptic, finely verrucose, amyloid, colorless, with droplets; BASIDIA 4-spored, 20-28 x 3.5-5 microns, clavate, with basal clamp connection; GLOEOCYSTIDIA embedded and exserted beyond the hymenium, 80-190 x 8-10 microns, cylindric to fusiform, with yellowish contents and droplets, sulfo-negative; HYPHAE monomitic, tramal hyphae 2-3.5 microns wide, brown, thick-walled, subhymenial hyphae 1.5-2.5 microns wide, colorless, thin-walled, some encrusted, all septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach), SPORES 5-4.5 x 2.5 microns [sic, perhaps should have been 3.5-4.5 x 2.5], oblong-elliptic, finely echinulate, amyloid, thin-walled; BASIDIA 4-spored, 20-30 x 3.5-5 microns, narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA of variable length, 40-100 microns or more, width 5-10 microns, filled with yellowish oily substance, in dried material generally coalesced, dissolving in Melzer''s reagent and filling cystidium evenly, when young the cystidia fusiform, subulate [awl-shaped], "often with a moniliform apical appendix, more or less projecting, in old specimens tubiform, mostly obtuse"; "in marginal parts of young fruitbodies cystidioid, oleiferous hyphae are sometimes found, 100-200 microns long, with the same contents as the cystidia"; HYPHAE monomitic, hyphae of light brown trama distinct, "with thin or somewhat thickened walls", usually 2.5-4 microns wide, subhymenial hyphae thin-walled, "in old fruitbodies partly collapsed then forming a hyphal net with irregular meshes", penetrated by very thin-walled, plasma-filled generative hyphae 1-3 microns wide, (Eriksson), spore deposit whitish (Phillips)