Summary:
Also listed in Truffles category. Features include 1) a dry to slightly viscid cap covered with grayish fibrils on an ocher to orange ground, often becoming vinaceous when old, 2) ocher to orange flesh, 3) distorted convoluted gills that usually remain covered, 4) a short, ochraceous to dull orange stem that usually become vinaceous-stained, and 5) microscopic characters including large spores on 4-spored basidia, and prominent leptocystidia. Brauniellula albipes is thought to be sequestrate form of Chroogomphus. It resembles Chroogomphus spp. but has rudimentary gills if any, and is often buried or half-buried. Chroogomphus albipes is listed as the current name in the online Species Fungorum, accessed February 10, 2015. It is an infrequent sequestrate species in the Pacific Northwest (Trappe(13)).

Gills:
spore mass "composed of crowded, convoluted plates and/or cavities", "usually remaining covered by the veil, but sometimes partially exposed"; "ochraceous to pale orange, becoming darker (grayish to nearly black) as spores mature", (Arora), "a convoluted mass of loculate to lamellate-intervenose tissue", the part of the spore mass becoming exposed usually appearing somewhat lamellate [gill-like], "very few of the interior cavities actually opening to the outside", typically remaining covered by veil and incurved peridial margin but in a few fruitbodies opening out slightly to expose lower part of spore mass; ochraceous at first, but when old drab from spores, (Smith(23))

Stem:
0.3-2cm x 0.5-1cm, equal or narrowed in lower part, "often so short that it scarcely protrudes below the cap", solid, firm; ochraceous to dull orange, often becoming vinaceous or reddish-stained when old and / or at base; usually fibrillose; veil "fibrillose, ochraceous or becoming vinaceous", (Arora), 0.3-1.5cm x (0.5)0.8-1cm at top, equal or narrowed in lower part, solid; ochraceous overall but when old finally vinaceous red, streaked with ochraceous to vinaceous fibrils from the thin dry veil, "base often reddish from these fibrils", (Smith(23))

Veil:
"fibrillose, ochraceous or becoming vinaceous", (Arora)

Odor:
not distinctive (Smith(23))

Taste:
not distinctive (Smith(23))

Microscopic spores:
spores 16-20 x 6.5-9 microns, elliptic to spindle-shaped, smooth, (Arora), spores 16-20 x 6.5-9 microns, elliptic, smooth, smoky yellow-brown in water mounts of fresh material, pale melleous in KOH either fresh or revived, strongly pseudoamyloid (dark red-brown) in Melzer''s reagent either fresh or revived, wall thickened slightly (less than 1 micron thick), no apical differentiation observed; basidia 4-spored, 44-52 x 9-12 microns, colorless and with "granular" content fresh, dull orange-brown to yellowish in Melzer''s reagent; cystidia abundant, 100-150 x 14-26 microns, "subventricose to subcylindric, more or less tapered to an obtuse or subacute apex, walls flexuous toward apex, thin-walled, when fresh with vinaceous-red incrustations around medial area in age, when revived in KOH, content vinaceous red, yellowish-hyaline in Melzer''s sol."; hyphae of tramal plates 4-8 microns wide, "subparallel and curving out slightly to an interwoven subhymenium, the hyphae thin-walled, with scattered incrusting particles some of which are reddish as revived in KOH", some hyphae distinctly though weakly amyloid (with blue to lilac walls) when fresh, reaction very erratic in dried material; hyphae of context colorless but in sections revived in KOH the section showing a pinkish tint, mostly not incrusted; hyphae of cuticle 4-5 microns wide, "radially arranged, much incrusting material present and this reddish in KOH on revived sections"; clamp connections none, (Smith(23)), after several years in herbarium, the reddish coloration of the cystidia in KOH did not occur, or at most, there was a very faint change, (Thiers), leptocystidia 130-140 x 30-36 microns, encrusted with vinaceous debris, (States)

Spore deposit:
print not obtainable, spore color gray to black, (Arora)

Notes:
Collections were examined from ID, CA, CO, NV, UT, and WY, (Pacioni). It is common in the Sierra Nevada and Cascades as well as in ID (Arora), and is also found in AZ (States). A collection from BC is at the University of British Columbia.

EDIBILITY

unknown (Arora)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Brauniellula albipes (Zeller) A.H. Sm. & Singer
Dibotryon morbosum (Schwein.) Theiss. & Syd.
Sphaeria morbosa Schwein.