Details about map content are available here Click on the map dots to view record details.
Species Information
Summary: {See also Orange Chanterelles Table.} Also listed in Veined category. This species of chanterelle is distinguished from others in the Pacific Northwest when fresh by its marginal pinkish hoary coating and bright yellow spore-bearing surface. The description here is derived from Redhead(24) unless otherwise specified.
C. roseocanus is found in BC, WA, (Redhead), and OR, (Pilz), and CA (Desjardin). Foltz(1) say their nLSU data suggest the taxon may be the most widespread chanterelle in North America, with a known range across WA, OR, ID, CO, MI, MA, NY, and NL.
Cap: 2-12cm across, flat-convex with inrolled margin, becoming depressed centrally and lobed and crisped marginally, sometimes funnel-shaped or multi-capped when deeply incised and forming fan-shaped lobes; 'pale yellow pink; to 'gray yellow pink' from a heavy hoar especially marginally, to 'brilliant orange yellow' centrally when young, when more mature 'soft orange yellow', 'medium orange yellow', 'brilliant orange yellow', or 'light orange yellow', masked on margins by a 'pale yellow pink' to 'pale orange yellow' hoar-like coating (salmon colored when both pigmented layers blend) and on some caps vaguely concentrically ringed by broad bands; moist, bald, (Redhead), up to 12cm across, usually much smaller; bright yellow orange overall but margin covered with a thin pinkish bloom (possible obscured when rain soaked), (Pilz)
Flesh: firm, fibrous; bruising sparingly and very slowly, with damaged areas noted as darker patches in older specimens, (Pilz)
Gills: decurrent, forming folds or ribs, crowded to subdistant (0.1-0.4cm apart), forking 2 or 3 times towards the margins, anastomosing, the folds up to 0.5cm deep when old; when young ''light yellow'' to ''pale orange yellow'', with age ''light orange yellow'' to ''brilliant orange yellow'' or ''pale orange yellow'', lacking pinkish tints, (Redhead), ridges running from cap edge well down stem; more or less brilliant orange yellow, as intensely colored or darker than the cap, (Pilz)
Stem: 1.5-5cm x 0.7-2.4cm, with a tapered to rounded base, solid, variably sheathed by decurrent spore-bearing tissue; unsheathed area ''light orange yellow'' to ''light yellow'', when older ''pale orange yellow'' or whiter or grayer but often with more intense orange or yellow traces basally, overall no obvious bruising reaction but darker on old damaged patches, (Redhead), usually relatively short, solid; light yellow, (Pilz)
Odor: fruity apricot-like (slightly stronger than C. formosus), (Pilz)
Taste: some forms of C. cibarius have subtle peppery taste
Microscopic spores: spores (6)7.5-10(11.3) x 4.5-5.5 microns, averaging 8.5 x 4.9, length/width 1.72-1.74, oval to elliptic in face view, slightly inequilateral in side view, smooth, inamyloid, thin-walled; basidia 4,5,6-spored, 116-128 x 7.3-9 microns (cf. formosus 86-120 microns), sterigmata large, 4-6 microns long and incurved with 5th and 6th further from the apex; hymenial cystidia absent; cap cuticle initially a radially inclining turf of free hyphal ends which soon collapse into a radially matted, thin, colorless to yellow layer that exhibits many long, bluntly tipped hyphal ends, hyphae and hyphal ends 3.5-5.5 microns wide, smooth, walls up to 0.6 microns thick; clamp connections abundant in all tissues (Redhead)
Spore deposit: orangish yellow, similar in color to spore-bearing surface, (Redhead), orange yellow (Pilz)
Habitat / Range
single to gregarious, often in small clusters, on bare or mossy or grassy needle beds, in second growth Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), or under spruce (Picea) with hemlock (Tsuga) and or fir (Abies), (Redhead), associated with Sitka spruce on the coast and Engelmann spruce at higher elevations in the Cascade Range, but not found in pure stands of Douglas-fir or hemlock, also reported from pure stands of Lodgepole Pine along Oregon coast; generally fruiting from August through October in old forests, (Pilz), summer, fall
Similar Species
Cantharellus formosus 1) tends to be smaller and less yellow [in some areas it tends to be larger, D. Winkler, pers. comm.], 2) lacks the pinkish hoary coating on margin (present on fresh var. roseocanus), 3) has a pinkish tone to the undersurface of the cap which is typically paler than cap (on C. roseocanus typically undersurface is the most intensely yellow tissue of fruiting body), 4) stains yellow readily (C. roseocanus merely exhibits darkened areas where damaged), 5) has spores that rarely exceed 9 microns and length/width ratio 1.47-1.6, as opposed to those of C. roseocanus that often exceed 10 microns, and have length/width ratio 1.72-1.74, (Redhead), C. formosus 6) frequently with small closely adhering, slightly darker scales particularly visible in dry weather, whereas C. roseocanus lacks closely appressed scales even when young, 7) spore deposit lighter in color, and 8) when bruised stains yellow at first (slowly), eventually darkening to dull ocher, whereas C. roseocanus exhibits no immediate yellow staining, (Pilz). See also SIMILAR section of Cantharellus cascadensis.
Redhead(24) (as Catharellus cibarius var. roseocanus) (colors in single quotation marks from Kelly(1)), Pilz(1)* (as Catharellus cibarius var. roseocanus), Trudell(4)* (as Catharellus cibarius var. roseocanus), Foltz(1), Desjardin(6)*, Siegel(2)*, Marrone(1)* References for the fungi
