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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) small size, 2) a white to pinkish-buff cap, 3) growth exclusively on cones, usually of Douglas fir, 4) spores that are small, smooth, and inamyloid, 5) pleurocystidia with an apical resinous mass that ruptures to leave an apical collarette, 6) a distinctive cap cuticle, and 7) no clamp connections. It is very common in the Pacific Northwest.
Collections were examined from BC, CA, ID, OR, and WA, (Redhead(1)), as well as CO (Redhead(6)).
Cap: 0.5-1.5cm across, convex to flat or slightly depressed; white to pinkish buff or brownish; "dry, often striate or wrinkled, minutely granular", (Arora), 0.5-2cm across, convex to flat, becoming depressed when old, margin inrolled when young, flaring when old, occasionally splitting when old; somewhat hygrophanous to hygrophanous, "darkest centrally, white to pale peach, salmon, or sienna"; dry, unpolished, smooth to rugulose [finely wrinkled], densely pruinose, wholly or marginally translucent striate, (Redhead(1)), 0.4-1.7cm across, convex when young, flat-convex or flat-depressed when old; disc light brown, brownish orange, or orange-white when young, margin pinkish white, fading slightly overall when old but retaining pinkish tones; bald, smooth or subrugulose [somewhat wrinkled], dull, translucent-striate, (Desjardin), white or pinkish centrally and when old (Lennox)
Flesh: very thin (Arora), fleshy, colored as cap, (Redhead(1)), thin; whitish, (Desjardin)
Gills: "typically adnate to adnexed, close"; white or tinged pinkish buff, (Arora), adnexed, moderately crowded, subgills in 2 to 3 tiers, gills moderately broad; "white to pale pink", (Redhead(1)), adnexed, close, 2-4 tiers of subgills, gills moderately broad; white, pale yellowish white or pinkish white, (Desjardin(1)), adnate to sinuate (Lennox)
Stem: 2-5cm x 0.1-0.15cm, equal; top white, lower part "yellowish to brownish or tawny"; "dry, minutely granular", "base with yellow to tawny-orange hairs and mycelial threads", (Arora), up to 5cm long, 0.1-0.2cm wide, "equal, cartilaginous, stuffed", becoming hollow when old, root-like pseudorhiza usually present and is "densely covered with sienna to orange floccose mycelium"; "white apically, pale luteous to sienna, umber or cinnamon below"; "dry, densely pruinose", (Redhead(1)), 2-6cm x 0.075-0.2cm, equal, round in cross-section, with a long root-like pseudorhiza; top white, mid-part yellow or grayish orange, base brownish orange or brownish yellow; top pruinose, mid-part pubescent [downy], base tomentose, covered with downy, orange mycelium, (Desjardin(1)), with a pseudorhiza equal to or greater than the aerial part, (Lennox), "often with whitish to pale orange hairs at base" (Siegel)
Odor: not distinctive (Desjardin(1))
Taste: not distinctive (Desjardin(1))
Microscopic spores: spores 3-6 x 1.5-3.5 microns, elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, (Arora), spores 3-6 x 1.5-3.5 microns, elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, thin-walled; basidia 4-spored, 13-26 x 2-5 microns, clavate, simple-septate; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia abundant, rarely scattered, utriform to cylindric, clavate or broadly lecythiform, rarely obtusely fusoid-ventricose, 23-60 x 5-14 microns, "usually with a massive apical resinous to finely granular mass bound by a thin membrane which ruptures in mounts to leave an apical collarette"; pileocystidia "abundant, elongated, fusoid-ventricose to tibiiform, scantily incrusted", colorless or tinted brownish on the immersed base, "usually with a deeply embedded contorted base"; caulocystidia abundant, 23-100 x 6.5-15 microns, occasionally aggregated, narrowly conic and capitate, "scantily incrusted apically, smooth", colorless, (Redhead(1)), spores 3.6-5.7 x 2.1-3.3 microns, elliptic or narrowly almond-shaped; basidia 4-spored, 12-18 x 3.6-5.1 microns, clavate; pleurocystidia abundant, 36-42 x 6-12 microns, "cylindric, clavate, or fusoid-ventricose, subcapitate or capitate", capped with a large, spherical, membrane-bound, granular and resinous mass, "often with the membrane remaining as a thin apical collarette", cheilocystidia abundant, 36-45 x 6-9 microns, "cylindric or clavate, often subcapitate", colorless or pale yellow, "inamyloid, thin-walled", rarely capped with a small, spherical, granular and resinous mass; cap cuticle hymeniform, cells 15-24 x 4.8-12 microns, cylindric, broadly clavate or spheropedunculate, with scattered pileocystidia 48-72 x 5.4-9 microns, "cylindric, fusoid-ventricose or subcapitulate, capitate", colorless or pale yellow, thin-walled; caulocystidia "abundant, often clustered", 30-84 x 7.2-15 microns, "cylindric or narrowly conic, capitate", with colorless or pale ochraceous, inamyloid walls up to 2.4 microns thick, (Desjardin(1)), spores 3-4.5 x 1.5-3.0 microns (Lennox), spores 3-6 x 1.5-3.5 microns, pleurocystidia abundant, relatively thin-walled, tips usually bearing "a mass of granular material that leaves a bit of a ridge when it disappears"; cap cuticle composed of club-shaped cells; clamp connections absent, (Trudell)
Spore deposit: white (Arora, Redhead(1))
Habitat / Range
in colonies on old Douglas-fir cones or rarely cones of other conifers (Arora), on senescent often buried cones of Pseudotsuga menziesii (Douglas-fir) or rarely Pinus spp. (pine), (Redhead(1)), scattered to densely gregarious on senescent cones of Pseudotsuga menziesii, rarely Pinus spp., August to January, (Desjardin(1)), summer, fall, winter
Similar Species
Strobilurus occidentalis favors Sitka spruce cones, tends to be browner without a pinkish cast, and has thicker-walled pleurocystidia that lack granular material at tip (and lack an apical collarette). Strobilurus albipilatus may grow on debris, tends to be browner (often grayish brown) and its pleurocystidia lack apical collarettes. Baeospora myosura is differentiated by its 1) slightly larger size, 2) crowded gills, 3) weakly amyloid spores, 4) pleurocystidia that lack apical collarettes, 5) hyphae with clamp connections, and 6) cap cuticle composed of repent, radially oriented filamentous hyphae.
