Summary:
Features include small size, a pale convex cap, absent ring but slight evidence of a veil at the cap margin when young, and dark brown spore deposit. |Var. platysperma has larger spores, and frequently has watery spots or streaks on the cap. |Breitenbach(4) give this species as a synonym of Agrocybe semiorbicularis (Bull. ex St. Am.) Fay., but Watling describes them separately and says the latter differs in its cap becoming quite viscid in wet weather. He also says that Agrocybe semiorbicularis lacks a veil and usually has 2-spored basidia and A. pediades has white feathery fibrils of a veil on the cap margin when young and has 4-spored basidia. |The online Species Fungorum includes among the synonyms of Agrocybe pediades (Fr.) Fayod the following three taxa - Agrocybe semiorbicularis mentioned above, Agrocybe subpediades, and Agrocybe arenaria. Agrocybe subpediades is separately described in Watling(1) as easily recognized by bright yellowish ochraceous to rich tawny colours, small stature, large spores usually on 2-spored basidia, and a preference for sand-dune habitat (frequently around rabbit burrows, sometimes even attached to dung-pellets). |Agrocybe arenaria is a possible name for a sand-dweller in Haida Gwaii growing with Carex macrophylla (large-headed sedge) and showing robust size, a well-developed ring, and a stem base that is a long mass of aggregated sand and hyphae extending deep into the dune (Kroeger(5)). |Arora''s description is for the A. pediades group.

Cap:
1.5-3.5cm across, convex, expanding only slightly and becoming flat on top, margin slightly incurved at first; not hygrophanous, rich pale ochraceous or cream, yellowish cream on drying; "greasy-viscid to touch often with adhering soil, smooth, not cracked or slightly wrinkled with age", margin "non-striate, with white feathery fibrils of veil when young", (Watling), 1-3(4)cm across, hemispherical to convex, or sometimes broadly convex to flat when old; ocher to golden brown or yellow-brown, but varying to yellowish buff, creamy, or even rusty brown; dry or slightly viscid, smooth or sometimes cracked when old, margin not striate but sometimes has whitish veil remnants, (Arora), 1-6cm across, hemispherical to broadly convex; whitish to dull yellow brown; bald, slightly viscid when moist, (Hermanson)

Flesh:
quite thin, even at disc; white or ivory becoming pale buff, (Watling), thin; pallid, (Arora), thick, whitish, (Hermanson)

Gills:
adnate, distant; pale sepia then darker, finally snuff brown, edge distinctly whitish, (Watling), "close, at first adnate but often seceding"; pallid, soon brown to rusty brown or cinnamon brown, (Arora), "adnate, seceding, broad"; "very pale brown becoming +/- rusty brown", (Hermanson)

Stem:
2.5-4cm x 0.43-0.5cm, widening downwards; pale ochraceous, at first with distinct ochraceous fibrils, finally cream or ivory; smooth, (Watling), 2-5(7)cm x 0.15-0.3(0.6)cm, more or less equal; pallid or buff to yellow-brown (often paler at top and darker in lower part); dry, often longitudinally striate, (Arora), 2-7cm x 0.15-0.3cm, equal, tapering downward or with a slightly enlarged base; pale yellow orange in upper part with yellowish brown near base; more or less fibrillose, furfuraceous [with branny particles], becoming bald, (Hermanson)

Veil:
absent or if present then fleeting and fibrillose (not membranous) and either disappearing or leaving slight remnants on cap margin and/or stem, (Arora), none (Hermanson)

Odor:
very mealy (Watling), mild or farinaceous (Arora)

Taste:
very mealy (Watling), mild or farinaceous (Arora), farinaceous (Hermanson), farinaceous and disagreeable (Miller)

Microscopic spores:
spores (10.5)11-13.5(14) x (6.5)7-7.5(8) microns, broadly elliptic in face view, slightly flattened on one side in side view, snuff brown in water and alkali, thick-walled, germ pore very large; basidia 4-spored, colorless, clavate-cylindric; pleurocystidia very rare, scattered, similar to cheilocystidia, cheilocystidia variable, ventricose-rostrate with +/- subcapitate head to lageniform, colorless, +/- with mucilaginous cap, 30-45 x 7-10 microns, head 2-4 microns; cap cuticle "a hymeniform layer of subglobose to ellipsoid cells not intermixed with hairs"; stem cuticle "of cylindric hyphae supporting groups of variously shaped cells similar to those on gill-margin"; clamp connections present, (Watling), spores 9-13 x 6.5-8 microns, elliptic, smooth, truncate with germ pore, (Arora), spores 10-12 x 6-6.5(7) microns, with distinct germ pore; basidia 2-spored and 4-spored; cheilocystidia present, (Hermanson)

Spore deposit:
snuff brown (Watling), brown (Arora), dark brown (Hermanson), rusty brown (Miller), dark tobacco-brown (Miller)

Notes:
It is included in the Pacific Northwest key of Hermanson(1). It occurs in WA (Andrew Parker, pers. comm.), in BC (Oluna Ceska, pers. comm.), and in CA (Desjardin). The University of British Columbia has collections from BC and the University of Oregon has collections from WA, OR, ID, AK, VA, and Mexico.

EDIBILITY

not recommended, too easy to confuse, (Arora)