Summary:
Features include 1) viscid or glutinous cap most often rich reddish brown with pale yellow margin but sometimes all yellow, 2) pale orange-yellow flesh that bruises pinkish brown, 3) pores that are creamy when young, then yellow, and then dingier, usually turning brownish or rusty where bruised, 4) stem that is yellow above annulus and streaked reddish brown to brown below it, 5) veil that may have a gelatinous outer layer and typically forms a gelatinous annulus, and 6) growth under larch. In western North America, the cap tends to be dark and cinnamon, but in Europe and eastern North America it is yellower, (Arora). Nguyen(3) provide molecular and other evidence to show that the name Suillus clintonianus should be used for what has been called Suillus grevillei in North America. Suillus proximus A. H. Smith & Thiers is considered by Bessette(3) to be a synonym of Suillus grevillei and therefore presumably now of Suillus clintonianus.

Chemical Reactions:
cap surface greenish black with KOH; flesh displays a pink flash with KOH that immediately becomes blue to bluish black, flesh stains olive-brown to olive-black with application of FeSO4, (Bessette)

Odor:
not distinctive or acid-metallic (Bessette), none to somewhat metallic (Smith)

Taste:
not distinctive (Bessette), mild to slightly astringent to bitterish (Smith)

Microscopic:
spores 8-10 x 2.5-4.5 microns, elliptic, smooth, pale straw to nearly colorless, (Bessette), spores 8-10 x 3-3.5 microns, elliptic to spindle-shaped, (Arora), spores 8-10 x 2.8-3.5 microns, more or less oblong, smooth, with a faint colorless outer sheath, pale olivaceous to ochraceous in Melzer''s reagent and KOH; basidia not described; pleurocystidia numerous to scattered or rare, sometimes in fascicles [bundles], 40-60 x 6-8 microns individually, subcylindric to clavate, but some obscurely fasciculate, smooth, brownish to yellowish in KOH and Melzer''s reagent, thin-walled, bister incrusting material at base only, cheilocystidia similar to pleurocystidia, "in fascicles, incrusted with bister pigment at level of hymenium, the bundles scattered to numerous"; cap cuticle a trichodermium of long gelatinous hyphae 3-6 microns wide, "the cells very long and narrow, end cells not differentiated"; caulocystidia single or in scattered small fascicles and with incrusting pigment as revived in KOH; clamp connections not seen, (Smith)

Spore Deposit:
dull cinnamon-brown, (Bessette), olive-brown to dull cinnamon (Arora), olive brown when moist, dull cinnamon when dry, (Smith)

Notes:
Suillus clintonianus is found in northeastern North America, west to the Pacific Northwest and AK, (Bessette). It is very common in ID and MT where larch grows, (Arora), and is found in BC (Bandoni), WA (several observers) and OR (R. Bishop, pers. comm.; voucher at Oregon State University), as well as NS and NC, (Lincoff(2)).

EDIBILITY

yes (Bessette, Arora)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Cordyceps ophioglossoides (Ehrh.: Fr.) Link
Elaphocordyceps ophioglossoides "(Ehrh.) G.H. Sung, J.M. Sung &"