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Species Information
Summary: This is the only common, small, white mushroom in the Pacific Northwest with pinkish spores, a thin stem and attached gills; note also the angular spores. The online Species Fungorum, accessed April 14, 2012, lists both the type variety and var. lutescens under Entoloma sericellum (Fr.) P. Kumm. It is very common in the western United States (Largent(1)).
Collections were examined from WA, OR, ID, CA, NC, and Scotland (Largent(1)). There are collections from BC at the University of British Columbia and at Pacific Forestry Center in Victoria.
Gills: "adnate to slightly decurrent or notched, well-spaced"; white, becoming rosy-pinkish when old from spores, (Arora), "adnate, sinuate, emarginate, or uncinate, crowded to subdistant, narrow to moderately broad", 0.2-0.9cm x 0.7-3.2cm; white at first, edge white; edge even, (Largent)
Stem: 1.5-5cm x 0.1-0.4cm, equal, smooth, fragile; white or discoloring like cap, (Arora), 2.5-8.5cm x 0.15-1.3cm, equal to narrowed at base, 0.15-1cm at base, stuffed becoming hollow, round in cross-section "but often flattened and with a longitudinal groove"; white becoming tinged yellowish; pruinose to flocculose at top, bald to slightly appressed-fibrillose elsewhere, (Largent)
Odor: mild, at times fungoid to slightly pungent, (Largent)
Taste: mild to slightly unpleasant (Largent)
Microscopic spores: spores 9-13 x 6-8 microns, elliptic but angular (nodulose), (Arora), spores 7.3-12.9 x (5.3)5.9-10.2 microns, 5-6 sided, angular, smooth, heterodiametric (longer than wide), [inamyloid]; basidia 2-spored to 4-spored, 28-47.5 x 9-14 microns, easily separated; pleurocystidia rare if present at all, cheilocystidia rare, scattered, to more typically abundant, 40-70 x 6-10 microns, versiform in shape, colorless; pileocystidia 30-153 x 5-20 microns, colorless, cylindric to clavate, at times capitate; caulocystidia 26-90 x 5.0-12.5 microns, versiform, often like cap cystidia; clamps rare to scattered on hyphae of pileipellis and stipitipellis, scattered at base of basidia; pigmentation colorless, not at all incrusted, (Largent)
Spore deposit: bright flesh color (Arora), pink (Buczacki)
Habitat / Range
scattered to gregarious "in damp soil in woods, thickets, along trails, etc.", (Arora), single, scattered, or gregarious in mossy humus, grassy areas, leafy humus, cedar branchlet humus, or needle humus under or near various conifers and hardwoods, devil''s club, or ferns, in Pacific Northwest late June through mid-December, (Largent), summer, fall, winter
Similar Species
Alboleptonia ochracea becomes tinged pale orange to orange brown and microscopically has broadly club-shaped cheilocystidia and stem. Alboleptonia earlei stays white and has spores averaging less than 9 microns long. Alboleptonia subsericella has a depressed cap, stays white, has farinaceous odor, and microscopically lacks cheilocystidia. Leptonia albida changes to creamy tan and has a cap measuring 2-3cm with a finely scaly surface, and it has a woody bitter taste. Leptonia albinella also turns yellowish with maturity but has a cap up to 1cm across that is finely scaly over the disc to fibrillose at the margin. For both Leptonias the cap surface is microscopically a trichodermium rather than entangled hyphae.
Largent(1)*, Arora(1)* (var. not specified), Phillips(1)* (var. not specified), Miller(14)* (var. not specified), Trudell(4)* (as Entoloma sericellum, variety not specified), Buczacki(1)* (as Entoloma sericellum) References for the fungi
