Summary:
Features include 1) large, rosette-like form of many caps from a single stem, the caps violaceous black, the cap surface with concentric ridges and striate toward margin, 2) brittle flesh, 3) violaceous-colored to vinaceous brown teeth, and 4) stout, corky, pinkish brown stem. It is common on the Pacific Coast but uncommon in the Rocky Mountains (Bessette).
Hydnellum regium is found at least in WA (Hall), ID, OR, CO, (Harrison), and BC (Bessette).
Cap:
5-10cm, fused in groups up to 25cm across and 15cm high from a central stem; violaceous black; "rough, fibrous, radially striate at margin", (Phillips), very complex, individual caps 3-9cm, in rosettes up to 25cm broad and 15cm high, convex, dividing, sections developing into complicated imbricated [shingled] caps, margins obtuse; "violaceous black", margin pallid "Quaker drab", when old "dark vinaceous gray" to "grayish olive"; with concentric ridges and obscure zonations, "surface matted fibrillose, eroded, spongy, radially striate toward margin", (Harrison), fruitbodies up to 10cm tall, single or fused, cap up to 13cm across, slightly depressed or funnel-shaped, proliferating small caps on discs of some specimens, margin thin; "alizarine blue" (Ridgway) when wet, zonate with "sepia" to "burnt umber" zones (Kornerup(2) colors), margin the same color; tomentose, collapsing to produce radiating striae, (Hall), violaceous black, margin grayish white becoming brownish gray to dark olive-brown when old, (Bessette)
Flesh:
violaceous at top, dull tan at base, (Phillips), firm, brittle (in cap more like the genus Sarcodon than Hydnellum); varying from "light brownish drab" at center, shading to "violaceous black" toward margin or "deep violet black", zonate, with ridges independent of color; in stem "benzo brown" or paler (lighter than in cap), (Harrison), "alizarine blue" with "sepia" zones (Ridgway colors); in stem not zoned, "pale orange" (Kornerup(2) color), (Hall)
Teeth:
vinaceous brown, (Phillips), up to 0.6cm long, very close, decurrent; "glaucous violaceous", "dark violaceous", a dark "slate purple", when mature "dusky brown", (Harrison), up to 0.7-0.9cm long, 4-5 per square mm, irregularly decurrent, becoming mere tubercles toward margin; "bluish gray" to "grayish violet" becoming "blackish blue" when bruised (Kornerup(2) colors), (Hall), 0.3-0.6cm long, decurrent, very close; pale violet to dark purple when young, becoming grayish brown when old, (Bessette)
Stem:
5-15cm x 2.5-5cm, compound, narrowed at base; pinkish cinnamon on lower part, (Phillips), compound, central, tapering to a point in the duff, very stout and solid, corky, brittle; "pinkish cinnamon" with "cinnamon buff" mycelium at the base, (Harrison), 8cm x 2.5cm, central, "grayish brown" in upper part, becoming "light brown" in lower part (Kornerup(2) colors), (Hall), "pinkish cinnamon, sometimes with small cavities containing orange-yellow mycelium that are evident when the stalk is cut lengthwise", (Bessette)
Taste:
disagreeable or mealy, slightly bitter, not noted in others and assumed to be mild, (Harrison), slightly peppery (Phillips), not distinct (Hall)
Microscopic:
spores 4.5-6 x 3.5-4.5 microns, oblong to nearly round, tuberculate, tubercles low and rounded; basidia 5-6 microns wide; hyphae 3-4 microns wide with few septa and with a few large clamp connections, 2 systems of hyphae present: 1) in stem, light colored with numerous amber-colored granules attached externally to cell walls, 2) only in cap, dark bluish with dark granules attached to inner walls, in KOH ''the dark hyphae turned dark blue-green quickly, and then blackish; the dark granules dissolved and the color leached to form a flocculent precipitate in the solution; the hyphae of the stipe turned slightly olivaceous; in Melzer''s reagent the dark hyphal system of the pileus was intensified and the dark granules showed more clearly and, in the stipe, scattered cells in the hyphae were found in which "apparent amyloid" granules appeared slowly'', (Harrison), spores 4.0-5.5 microns in diameter, round to nearly round, coarsely warted, inamyloid; basidia 4-spored, 30-35 x 7-8 microns, clavate; hyphae up to 5 microns wide, thin-walled with abundant large clamp connections, parallel and agglutinated in the hard cap context, (Hall)
Spore Deposit:
pale brown in thin deposit (Harrison), brown (Hall)
|
