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

Summary:
Features include 1) small size, 2) buff to light brown cap, 3) crowded buff gills, 4) pale brown, downy stem, 5) growth on conifer cones, 6) white spore deposit, and 7) small, smooth, weakly amyloid spores. Lennox says that Baeospora myosura may be synonymous with Baeospora conigena (Fr.) Lange. Breitenbach gives Collybia conigena (Pers.: Fr.) P. Kumm. sensu Lange as a synonym, and Lincoff says it was formerly known as Collybia conigena.

Collections were examined from BC, WA, OR, ID, NB, NS, ON, QC, AK, AL, CA, IL, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NC, NY, TN, TX, VA, WI, Sweden, and Switzerland, (Redhead(6)).

Cap:
0.5-2.8cm across, convex when young, flat-convex or flat when old, "seldom with a small, central umbo"; brown overall when young, disc remaining brown when old, margin fading to light brown, brownish orange, or rarely buff; "dull, dry or lubricous", bald or rarely appressed-fibrillose when old, (Desjardin), 0.8-2.5cm across, convex to somewhat conic, becoming flat, "occasionally shallowly umbonate, margin remaining inrolled, sometimes straight"; somewhat hygrophanous, warm buff to honey brown when moist, drying somewhat lighter, especially at margin; almost bald over disc, powdery elsewhere, (Lennox), 0.5-2cm across, "convex becoming broadly convex"; "tan, drying whitish-tan"; moist, smooth, (Lincoff), 0.8-2.2cm across, convex to almost hemispheric when young, later flat with obtuse umbo, margin acute, even; "slightly hygrophanous, light brown to hazelnut-brown when moist, center at times somewhat darker, light beige when dry"; smooth, dull, margin "somewhat radially silky-fibrillose", (Breitenbach)

Flesh:
0.05-0.1cm thick; "pale brown or buff", (Desjardin), thin, tough-pliant, reviving; colored as cap or pallid, in stem tough-pliant, colored as surface, (Lennox), thin; light beige, (Breitenbach)

Gills:
adnexed, becoming free when old, densely crowded, narrow, 3-4 series of subgills; "white or buff when young", pale grayish orange when old, "often mottled with brownish spots", (Desjardin), "sharply sinuate, appearing almost free", very narrow and crowded, 3 tiers of subgills, linear, blunt-pointed both toward the stem and margin; pallid to light pinkish buff, edges colored as faces; edges even, (Lennox), "attached, crowded, narrow; white", (Lincoff), finely adnexed to free, very crowded, 22-27 reaching stem, 3-7 subgills between each pair of gills, gills broad; "whitish to beige-brownish"; edges smooth, (Breitenbach)

Stem:
1.5-5cm x 0.075-0.2(0.35)cm, equal or slightly flared at the top, round in cross-section, often subradicating [somewhat rooting], "non-insititious, tough, pliant"; top buff or pale grayish orange, base brownish orange or light brown; top pruinose or pubescent, base floccose, (Desjardin), 2.5-4.2cm x 0.1-0.15cm, "equal or slightly tapered toward base in the upper half", solid to stuffed; somewhat hygrophanous, "concolorous at apex, then darkening slightly, and dark buff for most of its length"; finely pruinose to irregularly powdery, appearing almost bald when moist, the surface coating more visible on drying, strigose at base, often with white rhizomorphs as well, (Lennox), 1.5-5.5cm x 0.1-0.15cm, hollow; whitish becoming brownish; dry, minutely hairy, coarsely hairy stem base, (Lincoff), 1.5-4cm x 0.1-0.2cm, cylindric, "solid when young, hollow when old, elastic, with white rhizoids at the base"; beige-brown; "smooth, somewhat shiny, covered with a fine whitish powder", (Breitenbach)

Odor:
not distinctive (Lennox, Bessette), musty, mushroomy, (Breitenbach)

Taste:
not distinctive (Lennox, Bessette, Breitenbach), faint, mushroomy or bitter, (Buczacki)

Microscopic spores:
spores 3.3-4.2 x 2.1-2.7 microns, elliptic, weakly amyloid; basidia 4-spored, 10.8-15.6 x 3.3-4.2 microns, cylindric or clavate; pleurocystidia typically absent, rarely present near gill edge, similar to cheilocystidia, cheilocystidia abundant, 15-27 x 4.8-7.2 microns, "projecting 10-16.8 microns, broadly clavate or fusoid-ventricose", colorless or pale yellow, "inamyloid, thin-walled"; epicutis of cap 6-12 microns thick, composed "of radially oriented, filamentous hyphae, weakly incrusted or typically non-incrusted, non-gelatinous, inamyloid", subcutis of cap "20-40 microns thick, subcellular, non-gelatinous"; caulocystidia abundant, 18-36 x 4.2-7.8 microns, "scattered or clustered, similar to the cheilocystidia", (Desjardin), spores 3-5 x 2-3 microns, short-ovate to cylindric, amyloid, colorless, thin-walled; basidia 4-spored, very small, 16-19 x 3.5-4 microns, cylindric, without encrustation; pleurocystidia similar to cheilocystidia, most abundant toward gill edges, scattered elsewhere, cheilocystidia very abundant, making gill edge heterogeneous, rather small, 15-24 x 4-8 microns, broadly clavate, much wider in lower half and tapering to obtuse apex, thin-walled, colorless, (Lennox), spores 3-4 x 1-2 microns, elliptic, smooth, amyloid, colorless, (Lincoff), clamps mentioned for basidia and cap cuticle, (Breitenbach), spores 3-3.7 x 1.8-2 microns, (Wells, V.L.)

Spore deposit:
white (Lennox, Lincoff)