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

Summary:
Features include 1) a convex to depressed cap that is pale pinkish brown to pale purplish brown or pale grayish brown, 2) a sharp wavy cap margin that is sometimes cleft and lobed, 3) soft flesh that turns dark olive with KOH, 4) teeth on the underside of the cap that are white to pale gray and decurrent, 5) a cylindric to conic stem that is somewhat darker brown than the cap, 6) odor that may be like maple syrup when fresh and may be like Maggi when dry, and 7) white spore deposit. |Baird(3) has synonymized Bankera (of which this species is the type) with Phellodon, leading to the name Phellodon violascens. The latter was the current name listed in the online Species Fungorum and MycoBank, accessed August 2, 2020, but MycoBank, accessed the same date, listed Bankera fuligineoalba, the type of that genus, as the current name of Phellodon fuligineoalbus.

Bankera violascens has been reported from WA by Jumpponen(1), and is known from BC, OR, NB, NS, PQ, MI, and NM, (Harrison), NY (Banker), and also Europe.

Cap:
3-10cm, depressed, flat or lobed and wavy; grayish brown, dull brown to dark brown when old, whitish to pale fawn on margin; "at first smooth, unpolished, matted fibrillose, diffracted or lacerate scaly in age, scales small and appressed especially on small fruit bodies", (Harrison), 3-12.5cm wide, convex becoming flat to somewhat depressed, margin typically lobed or wavy when old; "pale pinkish brown to pale purplish brown or pale grayish brown, not readily bruising when handled"; finely tomentose to fibrillose, typically lacerate-scaly, at least over the center when old, (Bessette), 5-12cm, rounded, low convex, later depressed in center, margin incurved, sharp, irregularly wavy, sometimes cleft and lobed; "whitish, then flesh-reddish to purple-brownish from the center outward", "finely tomentose to appressed fibrillose-scaly", (Breitenbach)

Flesh:
"soft, sissile" [?scissile]; pallid to light brown, not zoned; in stem apex as in cap, harder downward, browner to dark umber at base when old, (Harrison), dull white to pale pinkish buff, (Bessette), soft, whitish to lilac - flesh-colored, brown to purple-brown toward stem base, (Breitenbach)

Teeth:
0.5-0.6cm long, "decurrent, fairly close"; "white to pallid, becoming pinkish buff or slightly sordid", (Harrison), up to 0.6cm long, strongly decurrent; pale gray, (Bessette), up to 0.6cm x 0.05cm, slightly decurrent; white then grayish, (Breitenbach)

Stem:
3-6cm x 1-2cm, darker than cap, "base darker or occasionally blackened in old specimens"; smooth becoming lacerate scaly, (Harrison), 3-7cm x 1-2.5cm, nearly equal to narrowing downward; "colored like cap but usually darker brown", often whitish near top and dark brown at the base when old; "smooth, sometimes lacerate scaly", (Bessette), 4-10cm x 0.5-2cm, cylindric to conic, sometimes off-center, often the upper third branched and may have separate caps or caps growing together; whitish then rust-brown to purple-brown, top with indistinct lighter zone; finely tomentose, dull, (Breitenbach)

Chemical Reactions:
cap and flesh instantly dark olive-green with KOH (Bessette), KOH turns dried flesh pale olivaceous, (Harrison)

Odor:
faintly fragrant, strongly fragrant when dried, (Harrison), fragrant like maple syrup when fresh, soon disappearing after picking, (Bessette), pleasant, when dry intensely like Maggi, (Breitenbach)

Taste:
mild, (Harrison, Bessette, Breitenbach)

Microscopic:
spores 4-5.5 x 4-5 microns, nearly round, coarsely echinulate, colorless in KOH and Melzer''s reagent; basidia 35-40 x 4-4.5 microns; hyphae in cap 4-6 microns wide, interwoven, not clamped, (Harrison), spores 4.5-6 x 4-5 microns, nearly round, finely spiny, colorless, (Bessette), spores 4.5-5.5 x 4-4.5 microns, nearly round, with fine spines, colorless, inamyloid; basidia 4-spored, cylindric-clavate, without basal clamp connection; hymenial cystidia not seen; hyphal system monomitic, subhymenial hyphae 2-9 microns wide, thin-walled, (Breitenbach)

Spore Deposit:
white (Harrison, Bessette)