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

Summary:
Features include 1) a hygrophanous, reddish brown to dark ochraceous brown, viscid, striate cap with a gelatinous peelable cap skin, when young appendiculate with whitish veil remnants, 2) gills that are grayish brown or brown to dark brown-violet and somewhat mottled to almost black, with whitish edges, 3) a whitish to brownish stem with the upper part silky to floccose fibrillose or erect-scaly, 4) growth on dung of cows and horses, and 5) microscopic characters including large, more or less elliptic spores. The description is from Guzman(1) except where noted.

Guzman(1) examined specimens from Greenland, Argentina, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Finland, France, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom (England, Scotland). There is a collection from Saturna Island BC by Paul Kroeger deposited at the University of British Columbia and reported in Guzman(4) which also mentions a Guzman & Trappe report from an alpine meadow in WA.

Gills:
broadly adnate; grayish umber or brownish to dark brown-violet, "somewhat mottled to almost black, edges whitish"; edges somewhat floccose, (Guzman(1)), broadly adnate and with a decurrent tooth, 18-22 reaching stem, broad, 5-7 subgills between neighboring gills; light brown when young, soon dark violet-brown, (Breitenbach)

Stem:
(1)2-4(5)cm x (0.1)0.2-0.3(0.4)cm, equal or sometimes narrowing downward, hollow or stuffed; whitish to brownish; silky to floccose-fibrillose or subsquarrulose [with somewhat erect small scales], principally at top, with white mycelial mat at base, (Guzman(1)), 2-5cm x 0.1-0.3cm, at times somewhat widened toward base or top, often bent, solid becoming hollow; "white-fibrillose or pruinose on a gray-brown background, base sometimes white-tomentose, elastic", (Breitenbach)

Veil:
rudimentary with white fibrils, no ring but veil remnants on cap margin at first

Odor:
none or slightly musty or fungus-like

Taste:
none or slightly musty or fungus-like

Microscopic spores:
spores (13)14-18(22) x (6.5)7.7-8.8(9.9) microns, subelliptic or elliptic (not lentiform or hexagonal) both in face and side view, ochraceous brown or dark yellow-brown, thick-walled (0.5-1.0 micron), with broadly truncate germ pore, up to 1.5 microns wide, [presumably smooth]; basidia 4-spored, rarely 2-spored, 33-38 x 12-14 microns, sterigmata 4-4.5 microns long, colorless, "subclavate or clavate, with a median or more superior constriction"; pleurocystidia absent or rare near edges and resembling cheilocystidia, cheilocystidia abundant, forming a sterile band, 33-40(50) x 8.8-10(12) microns, colorless, "obclavate, fusoid-ventricose or sublageniform", with a subcylindric, long and flexuous [wavy] neck 13-22 x 2-3(4) microns broad; clamp connections present, (Guzman(1)), spores 16.1-20.9 x 9.6-11.8 microns, +/- elliptic, smooth, thick-walled, with germ pore; basidia 4-spored, 30-35 x 11-13 microns, cylindric, somewhat constricted in middle, no basal clamp connections seen; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia sparse, 35-50 x 8-10 microns, narrowly lageniform; clamp connections not seen in cap cuticle, (Breitenbach)

Spore deposit:
purpuraceous black or dark violaceous brown, (Guzman(1)), dark brown (Breitenbach)