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

Summary:
Features include 1) medium or large size, 2) branches that are cream to yellow with yellow tips, 3) single whitish stem with reddish to violet stains mostly at the stem base but not caused by handling or bruising, 4) fruiting in spring or fall, 5) narrowly elliptic spores mostly with discrete warts but sometimes longitudinal ridges, and 6) clamp connections.

It has been found in WA, ID, (Petersen). There is a collection from BC at the Pacific Forestry Centre. There are collections from OR at Oregon State University.

Fruiting body:
9-19cm across, 12-19cm high, medium or large, (Marr), up to 13cm wide and up to 11cm high, depressed-elliptic to spheropedunculate in outline, stem single, major branches 2-3, ascending to divaricate, hardly round in cross-section, branches in 3-5 ranks, crowded when young, open at maturity, internodes diminishing upward gradually when mature, axils narrowly rounded, tips crowded and somewhat terraced when young, pluridentate, somewhat divergent when mature, (Petersen)

Flesh:
in branches homogeneous, crisp, white; in stem solid, homogeneous, white, (Petersen), fleshy-fibrous when fresh (Marr), fleshy to softly stringy, colored as surface, (Scates-Barnhart)

Branch color:
major branches off-white, branches very pale cream to yellow, often vinaceous around soil particles, tips jonquil yellow to slightly greenish yellow when young, paler where protected, when old occasionally discoloring to pallid brown, (Petersen), tips and branches pale cream to pale yellow or pale orange, (branches usually cream-colored, tips may be bright yellow), (Scates-Barnhart)

Stem:
up to 4cm x 4cm (usually smaller), single, rounded at base to tapering downward; "not brunnescent but appearing hygrophanous when handled or bruised, white to off-white", staining at base to ''peachy tan'' (Kornerup(2) color), maroon or vinaceous brown in spots, slowly becoming brown, (the maroon stains on stem base present before picking or handling, not enhanced by handling but sometimes when old suffusing upwards as spots and streaks on stem, rarely involving the whole fruitbody); smooth, minutely tomentose; often with a few abortive branchlets, (Petersen), 4-6cm x 4-5cm, single (occasionally two fruitbodies fasciculate), conic to slightly bulbous, reddish to violet stains on any part of the fruitbody but especially the base, (Marr)

Chemical Reactions:
stem flesh inamyloid (Marr), ferric sulphate in water green reaction, probably with branch sections, (Petersen), stem flesh negative with ferric sulphate in water (Exeter)

Odor:
"fresh, mildly spicy or fragrant, perhaps of tobacco", (Petersen), musty-sweet (Marr)

Taste:
negligible (Petersen)

Microscopic:
spores 11.2-14.0 x 4.3-5.0 microns, average 12.51 x 4.53 microns, (longer spores in some collections up to 18 microns long), narrowly elliptic, often with suprahilar depression, obscurely roughened in profile, ornamentation in many spores small discrete warts but many show very slender ridges generally longitudinally oriented, (ornamentation difficult to discern, even with aniline blue stain), several droplets that are obscure and subrefringent, wall up to 0.3 microns thick, hilar appendix gradual; basidia 4-spored, 50-65 x 7-8 microns, clavate, clamped, contents densely multiguttulate at maturity; hyphae of stem trama and of branch trama usually but not invariably clamped, (Petersen), spores 9-13.5 x 3.5-5 microns, average 12 x 4.1 microns, in a single specimen a few spores smooth, but mostly finely ornamented with irregularly shaped, cyanophilous warts; hyphae clamped, (Marr)

Spore Deposit:
golden yellow'' (Marr, color from Kornerup(2))