Summary:
Features include 1) a grayish to grayish brown, dry cap that becomes funnel-shaped but usually retains a small umbo, 2) white flesh that sometimes stains reddish, 3) crowded, whitish, forking, decurrent gills that develop reddish brown patches, 4) a white to grayish stem, 5) a white spore deposit, and 6) cylindric spores.

Cap:
2-5cm across, "convex becoming funnel-shaped with a small central umbo and sometimes a wavy margin; grayish brown to smoky or violaceous gray; dry and minutely hairy", (Phillips), 0.7-4.2cm across, acutely conic to broadly convex with incurved margins when young, later becoming flat, convex or funnel-shaped and with or without a small acute to obtuse umbo, margin remaining incurved, even, becoming broadly wavy to highly convoluted and scalloped in some collections; pale mouse gray or buff to vinaceous buff, becoming smoky gray to mouse gray when old or with handling, occasionally tinted greenish glaucous to olivaceous or dark citrine; dry, initially with a soft texture like kid-leather, becoming firmer and rugose [wrinkled] with age, otherwise bald, occasionally vaguely concentrically zoned, (Redhead(36)), 2-5(7.5)cm across, convex becoming flat to sunken, most with small pointed umbo, margin incurved at first, becoming upturned and wavy with age; "gray to grayish brown overall, often appearing to have white blotches"; dry to moist, smooth to minutely hairy, (Bessette)

Flesh:
white, bruising red where cut or handled (Phillips), whitish to pale gray or buff, "occasionally pale olivaceous near margins", "slowly becoming rosy buff on exposure in some cases"; in stem fleshy tough, (Redhead(36)), white (Bessette)

Gills:
"decurrent, crowded, narrow, thickish, regularly forked; whitish bruising red or yellow", (Phillips), decurrent, crowded to subcrowded, narrow, forking 1-3 times; white to buff or straw, staining dark brick to sienna in small patches, when old sometimes becoming luteous to ochreous in the edges near the cap margin, (Redhead(36)), decurrent, close to crowded, repeatedly and regularly forked; developing spot-like reddish or sometimes yellow stains when old, (Bessette)

Stem:
2.5-8cm x 0.3-0.7cm, "tough, stuffed; whitish to graying, silky", (Phillips), (1.7)5.5-7.2cm x (0.25)0.3-0.7cm, equal or widening slightly or narrowing slightly downwards, round in cross section, occasionally becoming flattened or puckered or furrowed and twisted when old, stuffed to hollow; whitish to buff or vinaceous buff at top, salmon to rosy buff in lower part, occasionally isabelline to citrine tinted and developing an iridescent sheen; initially soft like cap, velvety and in some, finely striate at top, minutely roughened to finely striate-rimose when old, base covered with copious white cottony mycelium, (Redhead(36)), 2.5-12.5cm x 0.3-0.7cm, often with swollen parts, stuffed, somewhat flexible, often bent, curved, and/or twisted; white to gray; silky in upper part, usually with whitish mycelium binding the lower stem to moss, often water-saturated near base, (Bessette)

Odor:
scented (Phillips), faintly of cucumbers, or fragrant or not distinctive, (Redhead(36)), not distinctive (Bessette)

Taste:
mild (Phillips), not distinctive (Redhead(36), Bessette)

Microscopic spores:
spores (7.8)8.5-10(11.1) x (2.5)3-3.5(4.2) microns, narrowly cylindric to fusoid-cylindric, slightly inequilateral, smooth, amyloid, colorless, thin-walled, with 1-3 droplets, apiculus moderately prominent; basidia 4-spored, 28-35 x 5-6.5 microns, elongate-clavate, thin-walled, smooth, colorless, often containing a number of refractive oil bodies, pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia not mentioned in description; clamp connections mentioned only for basal mycelium, (Redhead), spores 8-11 x 3-4.5 microns, subfusoid, smooth, amyloid, (Phillips), spores 8-11 x 3-4.5 microns, somewhat spindle-shaped, smooth, amyloid, (Bessette), basidia 4-spored with basal clamp connection; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia not seen; cap cuticle of irregular, short-celled and at times somewhat swollen hyphae 3-11 microns across, with light brown pigmentation, septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach)

Spore deposit:
white (Phillips, Redhead, Bessette)

Notes:
It has been found in BC and ID. Collections were examined from ID, QC, MA, ME, MI, MN, NH, NY, VT, (Bigelow). Collections were examined from ID, MB, NS, ON, PE, QC, AL, MA, ME, MD, MI, MN, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, VT, and WV, (Redhead(6)). Collections were examined also from BC, AB, NB, NL, and YT, (Redhead(36)). It also occurs in Europe including Switzerland (Breitenbach), and the USSR and Japan, (Redhead(6)).

EDIBILITY

yes (Phillips), doubtful (Kibby), a fine edible if young and fresh (Bessette)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Cantharellus umbonatus (J.F. Gmel.) Pers.
Clitocybe umbonata (J.F. Gmel.: Fr.) Konrad
Hygrophoropsis umbonata (J.F. Gmel.: Fr.) Kuehner & Romagn.