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Species Information
Summary: Also listed in Veined category. Cantharellus subalbidus is distinguished by moderate size, whitish cap, whitish forked thick-edged ridges decurrent on stem, bruising reaction to orange or orange-brown. It is fairly common in the Pacific Northwest, especially coastally.
It is found at least BC, WA, OR, (Pilz), CA (Desjardin), and ID (Arora).
Cap: 4-15cm across, flat to broadly depressed with wavy or lobed margin; dull whitish, bruising yellowish orange to orange-brown; dry or moist but not viscid, smooth but may have small scales in age, (Arora), up to 14cm across; cream to ivory, darkening to pale buff when old or water-soaked, entire mushroom becoming dark orange or rust color when very dry, (Pilz), 5-10(14)cm across, at first flat or with downcurved margin, soon margin elevated to somewhat recurved and becoming irregularly lobed or wavy, when old broadly depressed to somewhat funnel-shaped and quite irregular in shape; "white to whitish over all, becoming pallid buff when water-soaked and sordid yellow where handled"; felty-fibrillose to subtomentose, smooth or in age areolate-scaly, typically dry and unpolished, often very uneven, (Smith)
Flesh: thick, firm; white, (Arora), firm, dense; "cream colored and slowly staining dull yellow when handled", (Pilz), thick, firm, fibrous; white with a tendency to stain yellow where bruised; in stem fibrous and white, (Smith)
Gills: decurrent, well-spaced, thick, shallow, blunt, fold-like, usually forking or interveined; dull white or pinkish-tinged, often staining yellowish to orange when old or where bruised, (Arora), with generally well separated and long ridges, extending from the cap well down the stem, (Pilz), long-decurrent, close and narrow, edges obtuse and even, variously forked or anastomosing and strongly veined; "white to grayish white but becoming cream-colored and staining yellow to orange when bruised", (Smith)
Stem: 2-7cm x 1-5cm, central or off-center, equal or narrowing downward, solid, firm; dull whitish, discoloring yellowish orange to orange-brown when old or where bruised; smooth, (Arora), 2-4(5)cm x 1-3cm at base, flaring upward and indistinct from cap (gills decurrent almost to base), solid; white, staining yellow to orange when bruised, finally discoloring to sordid brown; unpolished, (Smith)
Odor: pleasant, in fresh specimens reminiscent of apricot (contrary to original description by Smith & Morse), (Pilz), mild or slightly fragrant (Arora), not distinctive (Smith), mild (Miller)
Taste: usually peppery when raw (Pilz), not distinctive (Smith), pleasant (Miller)
Microscopic spores: spores 7-9 x 5-5.5 microns, elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, (Arora), spores 7-9 x 5-5.5 microns, elliptic to broadly elliptic, smooth, inamyloid; basidia 4-spored to 6-spored, 62-80 x 8.5-10 microns, narrowly clavate, colorless in KOH but filled with many small oil globules; cystidia not seen; gill trama regularly with clamp connections, (Smith), clamp connections absent, (Castellano), clamp connections abundant in all tissues (Pilz)
Spore deposit: white (Arora, Pilz, Smith)
Habitat / Range
single, scattered, or gregarious in woods, especially under conifers, (Arora), under Douglas-fir and hemlock, commonly late summer and early fall in mature to old forests, (Pilz)
Similar Species
Cantharellus cibarius and Cantharellus formosus are somewhat similar: C. subalbidus is distinguished by dull white color, but may yellow and darken with handling while C. formosus loses color as it dries, (Pilz). An unnamed chanterelle occurs in British Columbia that is every similar to the European pale chanterelle, Cantharellus pallens Pilat, (Pilz). "An inadequately characterized form with a pallid cap, yellow hymenium and stipe is known from Meager Creek in B.C. under poplars mixed with conifers and from Vancouver Island near Port Alberni, under Douglas fir with birch and alder. They may represent C. pallens." (Redhead(24): p. 316. "C. pallens" is in italics.). See also SIMILAR section of Cantharellus cascadensis.
