Summary:
Features include 1) a smooth, somewhat spherical fruitbody that is dull reddish becoming pale flesh-color, 2) a spore mass with medium-sized irregular cavities that is dull reddish becoming flesh-color, 3) a sterile base present as a mycelial tissue-like pad, 4) absent columella, and 5) microscopic characters including inamyloid, colorless, spiny, round spores 11-15 microns in diameter, long 2-spored basidia, and broad hyphae of the mediostratum of the tramal plates.

Interior:
"at first fragile, becoming fleshy"; dull reddish when young, later flesh-colored; "chambers rather spacious and, especially in the center, quite irregular in form", (Singer), "very pale, drying brownish, brittle, cavities irregular, medium size", (Dodge), lacunose, fragile, marbled, (Lincoff), soft and by maturity friable; pink, (Trappe, M.(3)), white then pinkish (Buczacki)

Odor:
none in particular (Lincoff)

Taste:
none in particular (Lincoff)

Microscopic:
spores 11-15 microns, round, ornamentation in the form of pointed cones 1.7-2.2 microns high and 1-1.7 microns across at base, "separate but often touching at their bases", "pale yellow in Melzer''s reagent and ornamentation inamyloid", colorless in KOH, wall 0.8-1.3 microns thick, "sterigmal appendage short and inconspicuous"; basidia 2-spored, 40-52(65) x 10-13 microns, "narrowly clavate to subcylindric, thin-walled, readily collapsing, basidioles also readily collapsing", pseudoparaphyses none; cystidia none; subhymenium of hyphae 5-10 microns wide, "compactly arranged but thin-walled and delicate, collapsing readily, giving a cellular appearance in sections but basic arrangement not clear from dried material"; tramal mediostratum of hyphae 6-12 microns wide, interwoven, colorless, smooth, thin-walled, the cells somewhat inflated and readily collapsing, no sphaerocysts seen; peridial context (subcutis) composed of hyphae 5-12 microns wide, interwoven, colorless, very delicate, readily collapsing; epicutis of peridium of hyphae 3-8 microns wide, colorless, thin-walled, readily collapsing, the zone not distinctly separated from context; sphaerocysts none; oleiferous hyphae none; clamp connections present, (Singer), spores 9.5-14 microns, (averaging about 16 microns including spines), round, echinulate [spiny], averaging 16 echinulae on median limb of circle, echinulae plus exospore about 3 microns, spores colorless singly, dilute honey colored in mass; basidia 2-spored, 18-20 x 10-13 microns, sterigmata 5-6 microns long; cystidia large, smooth, colorless; "septa 20-28 microns thick between hymenial layers, about 55 microns to tops of paraphyses, stupose, composed of slender gelified hyphae"; peridium "150-270 microns thick, compact, fibrous, stupose", (Dodge), spores 10-18 microns, round, spiny, (Trappe, M.(3))

Notes:
Collections were examined from OR, CA, MA, Jamaica, Uruguay, Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, United and the Kingdom, (Dodge). There is a collection from BC at Pacific Forestry Centre.

EDIBILITY

fair (Lincoff, but note history of nomenclatural confusion)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Picipes melanopus (Pers.) Zmitr. & Kovalenko