Summary:
Features include a hygrophanous, yellow brown cap, a large flaring ring, a farinaceous odor, growth on hardwoods or hardwood debris, and dull brown spores.

Cap:
3-7cm broad, "obtuse expanding to plane, with or without a low umbo"; hygrophanous, when young dark yellow brown becoming yellowish brown when old; bald, moist; margin even, opaque, (Hermanson), 3-10cm across, convex then flattened; hygrophanous, dark yellow brown then pale buff when dry; dry, smooth, (Phillips), convex becoming flat, with or without low umbo; ocher-yellow; moist, smooth to wrinkled, (Lincoff), color variable, ocher yellow to yellowish cinnamon or yellow-brown when young, fading to yellowish tan to tan when old, (Bessette)

Flesh:
thin; white, (Phillips)

Gills:
adnate with a decurrent tooth; crowded; pallid to buff becoming brown, (Hermanson), adnate or with decurrent tooth, crowded; pale gray-brown, (Phillips), pale off-white, becoming brown, (Lincoff)

Stem:
5-10cm x 0.4-1.5cm, equal, hollow, fibrous; whitish becoming light blackish brown from base upwards, pallid at top; striate at top, (Hermanson), 5-10cm x 0.5-1cm, pallid buff or whitish, white mycelial threads at base, (Phillips), 4-12.5cm x 0.6-2cm, nearly equal or widening downward, (Bessette), white becoming dark grayish to grayish brown form base up when old, (Bessette)

Veil:
ring well formed, membranous, cream, (Hermanson), ring large, flaring, white, (Phillips), ring large, membranous, (Lincoff), ring large, pendant, persistent, superior, radially striate on upper surface, (Bessette)

Odor:
farinaceous (Hermanson, Phillips)

Taste:
farinaceous (Hermanson, Phillips), farinaceous to bitter (Bessette)

Microscopic spores:
spores 8-10.5 x 5-6.5 microns, apex snout-like with no apical (germ) pore, truncate; pleurocystidia 40-50 x 12-22 microns, clavate-mucronate [club-shaped, tipped with an abrupt short point] to +/- utriform or with 1-3 apical projections, cheilocystidia clavate, (Hermanson), spores 8-10.5 x 5-6.5 microns, smooth, truncate, (Phillips), spores 8-10.5 x 5-6.5 microns, smooth, with germ pore, (Lincoff)

Spore deposit:
dull rust brown (Phillips), cinnamon to rust (Lincoff), cinnamon brown (Bessette)

Notes:
It has been found in eastern Canada, NY, YT, AB, down to WY, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen). There are collections from BC at the Pacific Forestry Center and the University of British Columbia (as Pholiota acericola as well as Agrocybe acericola).

EDIBILITY

no (Phillips), yes with caution (Lincoff)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Pholiota acericola (Peck) Sacc.