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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) a blackish brown to dark brown young cap, with a hoary sheen and a thick cartilaginous cap cuticle, 2) firm-cartilaginous flesh (which gives a snapping sound when broken), 3) whitish to gray-whitish gills that may have yellowing edges, 4) a white to brownish stem with a floury apex, 5) growth in tufts, and 6) round spores.
It was reported from BC by Schalkwijk-Barendsen who says it is found in the west from YT to CA. It was recorded from WA by Andrew Parker, pers. comm.
Cap: 3-12cm across, hemispheric becoming flat, sometimes slightly umbonate or somewhat indented, pliant, cartilaginous; hygrophanous, dark olive-brown to chestnut-brown; "often +/- veined, tuberculate to wrinkled, satiny", (Breitenbach), up to 13cm across, "changing from very dark, blackish brown with a hoary sheen to chestnut", "finally to pale tan when overmature and full of insects", (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), 5-10cm across, dark gray brown to olive brown, cap cuticle "thick, somewhat veined and ribbed", (Hansen), 5-10cm across, "chestnut-sepia-brown, olive-umber", "as if armored with thick cartilaginous skin, tuberculate-wrinkled", (Moser), initially blackish, then the cuticle breaking up into tiny granules as the surface expands, revealing the white background and giving the surface a spotted or speckled look, (Lincoff)
Flesh: thick in center, thin toward margin, elastic, tough (especially cuticle) - when broken the cap gives a distinct snapping sound; whitish, brownish under cap surface, (Breitenbach), solid; white, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), tough to cartilaginous, (Hansen), firm-cartilaginous, (Moser)
Gills: "broadly adnate to somewhat notched and sometimes subdecurrent as a tooth", 56-65 gills reaching stem, broad, 3-7(11) subgills between each pair of gills; whitish to gray-whitish; edges smooth, (Breitenbach), adnate, close, later relatively distant, some interconnecting veins; whitish, edges yellowing; edges eroded, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), tough; white-pale, (Moser)
Stem: 3.5-9cm x 0.7-1.5cm, cylindric, "corticate, elastic, solid"; cream to pale brownish, gray-brown when old; almost smooth, longitudinally fibrillose, white-powdered at top, (Breitenbach), up to 8cm long and up to 4cm wide, strongly cespitose [in tufts], "often fused and not only at the base, irregularly shaped"; white, a bit brownish, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), 5-10cm x 1-1.5cm, pale brownish; apex floury, (Moser)
Taste: mild, not distinctive, at times somewhat peppery, (Breitenbach), with somewhat burning aftertaste (Hansen), somewhat burnt (Moser)
Microscopic spores: spores 5-6 x 4.5-5.3 microns, nearly round, smooth, iodine negative; basidia 4-spored, 28-32 x 7-8 microns, narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection, with siderophilic granules; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia not seen; cap cuticle "of +/- parallel and densely intertwined hyphae" 2-4 microns across, "uppermost layer slightly gelatinized, brown-pigmented", septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach), spores 6-7 x 6-7 microns, round, (Moser)
Spore deposit: white (Breitenbach)
Habitat / Range
usually clustered, along edges of forests and paths, in forests, gardens, and parks, "primarily under hardwoods, on bare soil or among grass or herbs", (Breitenbach for Europe), large cespitose tufts, their caps becoming irregularly shaped from crowding, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), in grass under deciduous trees, (Hansen for Europe), especially deciduous woods (Moser for Europe), fall (Buczacki)
Similar Species
Lyophyllum decastes can be similar (and L. loricatum is part of the Lyophyllum decastes group).
