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

Summary:
Features include small size, moist to dry ocher cap, yellow gills, yellow to ocher stem, pale yellow to salmon buff spore deposit, and growth on rotting conifer logs.

According to the key in Norvell(1), forms with dark scales on cap are either var. chrysophylla with orange or orange-yellow tints, (examined by Bigelow(9) from WA, OR, ID, NS, ON, QC, CO, ME, MI, NY, TN, and by Norvell(1) from BC, WA, OR, AB, QC, WY), or var. salmonispora with pinkish orange or salmon tints, (examined by Bigelow(9) from WA, ID), while more or less bald forms are var. hoffmanii (examined by Bigelow(9) from WA, QC, NY, and Norvell(1) from BC, WA). Redhead(38) in 1986 did not recognize these varieties, since variations of scaliness or precise color shade are found within other species. Chrysomphalina chrysophylla is also found in CA (Desjardin).

Cap:
(0.5)1-4cm across, "convex-depressed with an incurved margin at first", remaining so for some time or finally becoming flat-depressed, margin opaque; subhygrophanous [somewhat hygrophanous], fuscous-ochraceous on disc to smoky-ochraceous at margin; moist, minutely scurfy to fibrillose-scaly, (Bigelow for var. chrysophylla), 0.5-4cm across, "convex to flat and sunken in center", margin incurved at first; ocher to smoky-ocher; moist to dry, (Lincoff), more or less bald (var. hoffmanii) or with definite dark scales on disc and inner margin (var. chrysophylla and var. salmonispora), (Norvell), 0.5-4cm across, flat with shallowly depressed disc and incurved margin, becoming more funnel-shaped when old; ocher to yellowish brown; moist to dry, (Phillips)

Flesh:
thin, pliant; ochraceous, (Bigelow for var. chrysophylla), thin, flexible; orange, (Phillips)

Gills:
decurrent (usually evenly), "subdistant to distant, broad, arched", not forked or interveined but sometimes corrugated; yellow ("light orange yellow", "apricot yellow"); edges even, (Bigelow for var. chrysophylla), decurrent, distant, broad; golden-yellow to apricot-yellow, (Lincoff), "decurrent, distant, narrow to broad; orange-yellow", (Phillips(1))

Stem:
2-4cm x 0.15-0.3cm at top, equal or nearly so, stuffed but soon hollow; yellow (near "primuline yellow"), becoming smoky ochraceous or olivaceous tinged; moist, bald or obscurely fibrillose striate, base slightly mycelioid or entirely bald, (Bigelow for var. chrysophylla), 2.5-5cm x 0.15-0.3cm, somewhat curved, stuffed to hollow; yellow to smoky ocher; smooth, (Lincoff), 2-5cm x 0.1-0.3cm, "stuffed to hollow, somewhat curved or flattened; orange-yellow, sometimes tinged with brown"; moist, smooth, cottony white at base, (Phillips(1))

Odor:
not distinctive (Bigelow for var. chrysophylla and var. hoffmanii, Phillips(1)), not distinctive or odor fragrant (Bigelow for var. salmonispora)

Taste:
not distinctive (Bigelow for 3 varieties, Phillips(1))

Microscopic spores:
spores 8.5-15.5 x 4.5-6(7) microns, elliptic to elliptic oblong, or subfusoid [somewhat spindle-shaped] to subcylindric, often inequilateral from the side, somewhat bent at times, smooth, inamyloid; basidia mostly 4-spored, rarely 1- or 2-spored, 28-49 x 5.5-10 microns; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia absent; clamp connections absent, (Bigelow for var. chrysophylla)

Spore deposit:
yellow ("pinkish buff" to "warm buff") in var. chrysophylla but in variety salmonispora light salmon tinted (light "salmon buff", "ochraceous salmon"), unknown in var. hoffmanii, (Bigelow), off-white, buff to pale pinkish buff (Siegel)