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

Summary:
Features include 1) resupinate growth on wood, 2) a fruitbody that is membranous, soft, variable in color (pale tan to ochraceous, brownish red or burgundy, sometimes violet tinted, at first whitish to watery grayish), and smooth to slightly tuberculate, under a lens velvety from cystidia, 3) a margin that is whitish to pale reddish, fibrillose, and sometimes has rhizomorphs, 4) spores that are elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, and colorless, 5) cystidia that are cylindric or tapered somewhat, blunt, thick-walled, and densely encrusted, and 6) a monomitic hyphal system, the hyphae branching at near right angles, without clamp connections or scattered single or multiple clamp connections on the subicular hyphae, the subhymenial hyphae smooth or encrusted with brownish orange granular to mucilaginous appearing material, the subicular hyphae smooth or encrusted with colorless granules.

Phanerochaete velutina has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, AB, MB, NS, NT, ON, PQ, AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, IL, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MT, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NY, PA, TN, VT, and WI, (Ginns). It has also been found in Europe including Switzerland, and Asia, (Breitenbach), Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Norway, and Sweden, (Eriksson), and Jamaica, Austria, Denmark, France, Italy, Russia, and Armenia, (Burdsall).

Fruiting body:
resupinate, attached loosely to substrate, forming membranous patches several centimeters to decimeters across, consistency wax-like, soft; gray-ocherish to pink-cream; smooth to slightly tuberculate, velvety and dull, when dry somewhat fissured; "margin filamentous, sometimes with rhizomorphs", (Breitenbach), resupinate, adnate [firmly attached] or when old detachable in pieces, effused [spread out] and sometimes reaching considerable size (several decimeters in length), when dried mostly 0.01-0.05cm thick; very variable in color, "in the beginning whitish and when wet watery greyish, then often getting a reddish colour, in all shades from very weak to clearly vinaceous red or even orange red, especially when dried", also described as "from white to greyish or reddish to dark vinaceous grey and all shades of ochraceous"; mainly smooth, under a lens visible cystidia give a velvety appearance (and in old specimens a whitish color from their rich encrustations); margin white or pale reddish, lighter than the spore-bearing surface, "mostly fibrillose and often with some rhizomorphs"; subiculum normally thick and easily visible in the surface cracks or as a fringe in the margin, but sometimes thin, and consistency given by subhymenium, which when thickened imparts a ceraceous [waxy] appearance; the most typical specimens "have a more or less red hymenium and a margin which in the periphery is white, then an orange-coloured zone, inwards changing to the pale vinaceous red of the hymenium"; there is usually no reaction to KOH except for some orange specimens in which there is a weak red reaction, (Eriksson), broadly effused [spread out], up to 15cm x 10cm, up to 0.05cm thick, membranous, adherent, continuous; occasionally tan, usually ''brownish orange'' to ''light brown'' or ''reddish brown'', not changing color in KOH; velvety, cracking only slightly; margin up to 0.2cm wide, fimbriate [fringed] to fibrillose, irregular in outline, ''greyish yellow'', sometimes cordonic; cordons up to 0.05cm wide, colored as margin, no color change in KOH; "Cordons are absent in some specimens and extensively developed in others. Usually, however, the cordons are reasonably well developed."; "There is great variability in the macroscopic aspect of P. velutina. Hymenium color and extent of cordon development is particularly variable. The color varies from pale tan to dark burgundy brown, but never takes on the orange tints found in P. laevis [=P. affinis] and occasionally in P. sordida and rarely exhibits the cream color typical of P. sordida.", (Burdsall, Latin names in italics), spore deposit white (Buczacki)

Microscopic:
SPORES 5.5-6.5 x 2.5-3.5 microns, elliptic, flattened on one side, smooth, inamyloid, colorless; BASIDIA 4-spored, 28-38 x 4-6 microns, cylindric-clavate, without basal clamp connection; LAMPROCYSTIDIA 50-100 x 10-15 microns, projecting beyond hymenium, thick-walled, distal half strongly encrusted; HYPHAE monomitic, subicular hyphae 2.5-5 microns wide, thin-walled, "some sparsely encrusted with crystals", septa without clamp connections, (Breitenbach), SPORES 5-7 x 2.5-3 microns, normally elliptic with an oblique apiculus, but single spores vary to oval or subcylindric, adaxial side straight or slightly concave, contents oily plasmatic; BASIDIA 30-35 x 4-6 microns, subclavate, normally 4-spored and without basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA very numerous, reaching a length of 100 microns or more and a width of 10-15 microns, shape varying but normally subcylindric-subfusoid and obtuse, "walls of young cystidia thin but becoming finally very thick", cystidia richly encrusted; HYPHAE monomitic, subhymenial hyphae 2-4 microns wide, forming a dense, ceraceous context, thin-walled, without clamp connections; "subicular hyphae in young specimens with thin, later with more or less thickened walls, straight, more or less parallel to the substrate, 5-10 microns wide, in mature specimens normally richly encrusted, sparsely branched, with some clamps, singly, in pairs or sometimes in whorls", (Eriksson), SPORES 5.5-6.5 x 3-3.5 microns, elliptic, adaxially flattened, smooth, inamyloid, acyanophilic, colorless; BASIDIA 4-spored, 20-24 x 5-5.5 microns, clavate, colorless, thin-walled, sterigmata up to 4 microns long; CYSTIDIA 90-150 x 10-16(20), projecting up to 45 microns, cylindric or tapered somewhat to apex, with walls up to 3 microns thick, with infrequent secondary septa, densely encrusted with colorless crystals, occasionally cystidia are dextrinoid; HYPHAE monomitic; SUBHYMENIUM a compact textura intricata, hyphae 4-6 microns wide, branching at right angles or nearly so, colorless, thin-walled, simple-septate, "smooth or encrusted with brownish orange granular to mucilaginous appearing material"; SUBICULUM a loose to compact textura intricata to textura intricata-porrecta, hyphae 5-9 microns wide, regularly branching at right angles, colorless, thin-walled to slightly thick-walled, simple-septate with rare single and multiple clamp connections, smooth or more often heavily encrusted with colorless granules; CORDONS up to 500 microns wide, rind not differentiated, arranged in a textura porrecta-intricata, hyphae 7-10(12) microns wide, branching infrequent, walls slightly thickened or up to 2.5 microns thick, simple-septate with occasional single and multiple clamp connections, densely incrusted with colorless granules, (Burdsall)