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

Heliocybe sulcata
sunray mushroom
Gloeophyllaceae

Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.

Introduction to the Macrofungi
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Distribution of Heliocybe sulcata
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Species Information

Summary:
Features include 1) a convex, dry cap (with a small umbo) that is brown to orange brown, ribbed, and fibrillose-scaly, 2) white flesh, 3) sinuate, bone-colored gills serrated as in Lentinus, 4) a fibrillose, dry stem that is whitish near the top and pinkish tan lower down, 5) growth on wood, and 6) elongated spores. Heliocybe sulcata is widely distributed, especially on avalanche debris of aspen in the Rocky Mountains.

Heliocybe sulcata was reported from BC by Schalkwijk-Barendsen. The distribution includes AB, MB, ON, SK, YT, AZ, CO, IN, KS, KY, MI, MT, NE, NM, NY, WY, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Italy, Poland, and South Africa, (Redhead(6)). The holotype is from OH (Redhead(22)).
Cap:
up to 4cm across, ribbed over the gills like a small umbrella, "brown ribs over the gills, lighter in between, brown scales in cap centre, small umbo", (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), 1-4cm across, convex to flat-depressed; pecan brown to orange-cinnamon; "margin conspicuously ribbed, dry and fibrillose, becoming appressed-squamulose", (Smith)
Flesh:
solid, confluent in cap and stem; white, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen)
Gills:
sinuate, distant, with subgills, sometimes forked near stem; bone colored; serrate, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), close, broad; whitish then dingy tan, (Smith)
Stem:
up to 3cm tall and 0.3cm wide, whitish; lined at top, base with small scales, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), 1-3cm x 0.3-0.6cm, solid; pallid [whitish] near top, pinkish tan near base; fibrillose, "scaly near base from lacerated cuticle", (Smith)
Veil:
[absent]
Microscopic spores:
spores 11-16(20) x 5-7 microns, bean-shaped in side view, [presumably narrowly elliptic or oblong in face view]; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia 60-90(110) x 7-9 microns, subcylindric, (Smith), monomitic; no clamp connections, (Redhead(22))
Spore deposit:
white (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), orange buff (Smith)

Habitat / Range

on dry, bare logs and even on piers and fences, causing a brown rot, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), on dry habitats such as debarked, dry wood in rail fences or debarked fallen trees, (Smith), on often raised, debarked, hardwood or conifer wood, Saguaro cactus, mesquite, and ocotillo, in xeric [dry] sites, (Redhead(6)), "fairly common on decorticated, exposed wood in xeric sites in North America", (Redhead(22))

Synonyms and Alternate Names

Lentinus sulcatus Berkeley

Taxonomic and Nomenclatural Links


Genetic information (NCBI Taxonomy Database)
Taxonomic Information from the World Flora Online
Index Fungorium
Taxonomic reference: Trans. mycol. Soc. Japan 26: 359. 1985; == Lentinus sulcatus Berkeley; Neolentinus sulcatus (Berk.) F. Rune

Additional Range and Status Information Links

Edibility

Additional Photo Sources

Related Databases

Species References

Schalkwijk-Barendsen(1)*, Smith(6) (as Lentinus sulcatus), Redhead(6), Redhead(22)

References for the fungi

General References