Summary:
Features include 1) a reddish brown to dark brown, scaly, viscid cap, 2) white-edged gills that often have white to brown droplets, 3) a stem that is pallid or grayish above a slight, superior, fibrillose ring or zone, and brown to reddish brown with scattered brown scales below the ring, 4) mild or bitter taste, 5) growth on hardwoods, and 6) microscopic characters. It is rare in the Pacific Northwest according to Scates(2).

Cap:
3-10(15)cm across, broadly conic or convex becoming broadly umbonate to nearly flat; orange-brown to dark rust-brown or reddish brown, becoming dark vinaceous brown when old; viscid or slimy when moist, with scattered brown fibrillose scales, margin opaque and often fringed with veil remnants, (Arora), (2.5)3-8(12)cm across, "obtuse to broadly conic or convex" becoming broadly umbonate to nearly flat; orange-fulvous to deep ferruginous and finally dark vinaceous brown; "glutinous to viscid, shiny when dry", with brown fibrillose scales (veil remnants) that are pallid when dried out, margin opaque and often decorated with veil remnants, (Smith)

Flesh:
thick; whitish, (Arora), thick; pallid, (Smith)

Gills:
notched or adnate to slightly decurrent; whitish becoming grayish, finally brown; "the edges finely scalloped and white or beaded with tiny white droplets", (Arora), "adnate to subdecurrent or sinuate and with a decurrent tooth", close, very broad; whitish becoming grayish and finally rusty umber; the edges crenulate [finely scalloped] and beaded with white droplets, (Smith)

Stem:
3-10(15)cm x 0.5-1.5cm, more or less equal, fibrous, stuffed or hollow, often curved; pallid or grayish in upper part, brown to reddish brown (like cap) in lower part; with scattered brown scales below the ring area, (Arora), 3-10(15)cm x 0.5-1.5cm, equal or nearly equal, "fibrous and firm, stuffed becoming hollow"; pallid or grayish in upper part, dark brown in lower part; with squarrose brown scales below the ring, apex pruinose, (Smith)

Veil:
fibrillose-cottony, forming a slight, superior, fibrillose ring or zone on stem, or disappearing, (Arora), fibrillose-cottony, brownish, forming a slight superior fibrillose ring or zone on stem, or disappearing, (Smith)

Odor:
not distinctive (Smith)

Taste:
mild or bitter (Arora)

Microscopic spores:
spores 10-15(18) x 5-8 microns, elliptic, smooth, (Arora), spores 10-15(18) x 5.5-7(8.5) microns, in face view subfusoid (somewhat spindle-shaped), in side view "more or less inequilateral or at least the ventral line straighter than the dorsal line", smooth, apiculate, germ pore in form of "apical discontinuity projecting only through the thick inner layer", thick wall at maturity, 1-1.5 microns, in KOH dark cinnamon, in Melzer''s reagent nearly tawny; basidia 4-spored, 30-36 x 7-9 microns, narrowly clavate, colorless in KOH, yellowish pallid in Melzer''s reagent; pleurocystidia none, but occasional giant basidia present, cheilocystidia abundant, 43-75 x 4-9 microns, "cylindric-clavate with pedicels flexuous, at times subcapitate", colorless in KOH, "wall thin and smooth, content homogeneous"; clamp connections present, (Smith)

Spore deposit:
brown (Arora)

Notes:
Smith(3) examined collections from OR and NS, ON, QC, MI, NM, NC, NY, TN, and included NH and WI in the distribution. It was reported by Volk(3) from AK. There are collections from BC at the University of British Columbia.

EDIBILITY

said to be harmless but seldom eaten, (Arora)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Pholiota albocrenulata (Peck) Saccardo