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

Summary:
Features include 1) a buff, nonviscid, striate cap, 2) adnate, whitish to buff gills, 3) a tomentose stem that is white at the top and dark red-brown below, 4) a strong garlic odor and taste, 5) growth on dead salal and Oregon grape leaves, and 6) large elongate spores. Mycetinis salalis is closely allied to Mycetinis copelandii Peck var. copelandii on oak leaves in California and Mycetinis copelandii var. olidus (Gilliam) Desjardin on oak in the eastern US. The description (except where noted) is from Fungi Canadenses No. 214 (Redhead(27)) where BC collections were described as Marasmius copelandi Peck. Later after further examination of Marasmius copelandii Peck collections in California, Desjardin and Redhead designated the more northern taxon described in the Fungi Canadenses series as the new species Marasmius salalis (Desjardin(2)).

Mycetinis salalis is found at least in BC and WA (Desjardin(2) who report also fresh specimens from OR that were not retained).

Cap:
1.2-1.6cm across, convex to flat-convex; "buff with paler marginal areas"; moist [but Latin description in Desjardin gives "siccus"], somewhat radially furrowed when old, translucent-striate, often scalloped on margin

Flesh:
membranous-tough; colored as cap

Gills:
adnate, moderately spaced and sized, subgills in 2 tiers; whitish to buff on faces, paler on edges; crenulate on edges

Stem:
3.3-4.6cm x 0.1-0.3cm, "equal or with a slightly swollen base", insititious; palest near top, near white in color, dark brick to chestnut in lower part; "dry, sparsely to densely tomentose, being densest at the base"; rhizomorphs scattered, short, 0.2-0.4cm long, and tapering apically, tomentum similar to that on the stem

Odor:
strong of onion or garlic

Taste:
strong of onion or garlic

Microscopic spores:
spores 15-19.2 x 3.2-5.1 microns, (Desjardin), spores 15-19.2 x 3.2-4.0 microns, "narrowly pip-shaped to scimitar-like profile", smooth, inamyloid, colorless, thin-walled, some multiguttulate [with several droplets]; basidia 4-spored, 32-43 x 8-9.5 microns, clavate to subcapitate, with clamp connection; cheilocystidia 22-55 x 9-10 microns, "polymorphic, somewhat like the pileipellis elements but narrower and with less elaborately branched projections when present"; gill trama: hyphae similar to cap trama hyphae; pileipellis "a turf-like layer of polymorphic cystidia-like cells", 25-45 x 10-19 microns, primarily colorless to nearly colorless, "with thin to only slightly thickened walls", clavate to spheropedunculate, "usually with a few short finger-like projections, sometimes with more elaborately branched projections, also melanized cells usually with thicker brownish walls and usually less inflated than most nonpigmented cells", cap trama: hyphae 5-12 microns wide, loosely interwoven, with clamp connections, with thin to pronounced walls, smooth, inamyloid; caulopellis: "hyphae as in the trama but on average narrower, with brownish walls which become greenish gray in KOH solution" and bear bluish green crystalline plaques especially near stem base, "bearing numerous scattered to aggregated projecting hyphal hairs, these thick-walled, with obtuse apices, slightly swollen bases, nonseptate", and colorless to pigmented like the pellis hyphae, up to 500 microns long, 10-20 microns wide, stem trama: hyphae 5-12 microns wide, parallel, closely packed, colorless, often thick-walled, with clamp connections, (Redhead(27))

Spore deposit:
white