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

Summary:
Features include a whitish cap that is bald and may be viscid, white unchanging flesh, whitish pores that may bruise yellowish or brownish, a whitish stem with scabers that become brown, and bog habitat. The description here is for var. holopus: var. americanus is nearly identical but the cap is white at first, soon becoming dull vinaceous buff, with white context that changes to reddish when cut, (Bessette).

The distribution of var. holopus as eastern Canada south to New York, west to the northern Rocky Mountains, of var. americanus eastern Canada south to NY, west to MI, (Bessette). L. holopus has been reported from BC and NB (collections at the University of British Columbia), ID (M. Beug, pers. comm.), AK and VT (collections at University of Washington), NS (Grund), and Europe (Breitenbach).

Cap:
3-10cm, acutely convex, becoming broadly convex to nearly flat when old; "white or whitish when young, occasionally with gray, buff, tan, or pinkish tints", often darkening when old age and developing a greenish tinge; often viscid when moist or when old, bald or nearly so; margin with narrow sterile band of tissue, (Bessette), 3-10cm, cushion-shaped to convex, becoming broadly convex or nearly flat; "dull white and remaining this color or if water-soaked olivaceous along a broad marginal area, disc often tinged buff to vinaceous-buff, rarely pea-green overall in age"; soft, subviscid, when old or wet slightly more viscid, typically bald and unpolished "but some slightly areolate at times over disc, rarely with inconspicuous streaks from appressed fibrils"; margin often exceeding tubes by 0.05cm, (Smith)

Flesh:
"white, unchanging when cut or rubbed", (Bessette), thick, soft, white, when cut not staining or finally brownish (especially around larval tunnels); in stem not staining pink in apex when cut, but greenish to bluish in the stem base when mature, (Smith), take note of different staining reaction of var. americanus under NOTES

Pores:
2-3 per mm, round; "whitish to slightly grayish or pale dingy brown, unchanging or staining yellowish or brownish when cut or bruised"; tube layer 1-2.5cm thick, (Bessette), whitish becoming brownish, "when bruised staining yellow and then brown"; tube layer 1-2.5cm thick, adnate but soon deeply depressed around stem, pallid to pale olive-buff, when old wood-brown, (Smith)

Stem:
8-14cm x 1-2cm, equal or widening slightly downward, solid; whitish ground color with scabers that are whitish when young and darken to tan or darker when old, "occasionally with greenish stains on the lower portion"; partial veil and annulus absent, (Bessette), 8-14cm x 1-2cm, equal or nearly so; pallid, ornamented with squamules that become brownish (rarely blackish), top merely scurfy and remaining pallid a long time, (Smith)

Chemical Reactions:
cap cuticle displays a pink flash lasting less than one second, then negative, with application of KOH, flesh stains slightly olive with application of FeSO4, (Bessette)

Odor:
not distinctive (Smith)

Taste:
not distinctive (Smith)

Microscopic:
spores 14-20 x 5-6.5 microns, subfusoid [somewhat spindle-shaped], smooth, pale brown, (Bessette), spores 14-20 x 5-6.5 microns, subfusoid, smooth, yellowish in Melzer''s reagent when immature and dark reddish brown when mature, pale dingy cinnamon to ochraceous-cinnamon revived in KOH, no apical pore seen, wall slightly thickened; basidia 4-spored, 26-32 x 8-11 microns, clavate with colorless to pale cinnamon content in KOH, yellowish in Melzer''s reagent; pleurocystidia scattered to rare, almost embedded in hymenium, 28-36 x 9-12 microns, fusoid-ventricose, content not distinctive; cap cuticle a trichodermium of interwoven subgelatinous hyphae 4-7 microns wide, "end-cells tubular to somewhat cystidioid with obtuse apex"; caulocystidia "mostly the fusoid-ventricose type with elongate somewhat flexuous necks and subacute apex", clavate cells also present; clamp connections absent, (Smith)

Spore Deposit:
brown (Bessette), cinnamon-brown (Smith)