Hydnellum auratile (Britzelm.) Maas Geest.
No common name
Bankeraceae
Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.
Introduction to the Macrofungi
No common name
Bankeraceae
Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.
Introduction to the Macrofungi
Photograph
Species Information
Summary:
Hydnellum auratile is a member of the H. aurantiacum complex and brighter orange with smaller spores than the other Pacific Northwest members (H. aurantiacum and H. complectipes). Its features include 1) a depressed to funnel-shaped, orange brown cap with paler margin, sometimes zoned by color, the surface tomentose then with radiating ridges, and sometimes scrobiculate or with excrescences, 2) orange fibrous woody flesh that is not zoned in the cap, (stem flesh duplex), 3) light orange teeth that become two-colored, 4) an orangish stem with a slightly swollen base, 5) moldy odor and taste, and 6) relatively small, nearly round spores. Note that this species is not included by Harrison & Grund in their 1987 key (Harrison(4)) that includes species known to them from North America: Hall disagrees with Maas Geesteranus''s view that this is a purely European species on the basis that the latter''s claim (that North American collections have the incorrect context color and immature spine color) does not hold for the Washington collections. On the other hand, Hall does not mention H. conigenum which Harrison(3) describes as common in the Pacific Northwest, and it is possible that H. conigenum and H. auratile are used by the different authors to refer to the same Pacific Northwest taxon. In this connection it is interesting that Franklin(1) maintained that a CA specimen SFSU 2176 identified as Hydnellum conigenum is really H. aurantile (and note also the orthographic variant of the species epithet).
Odor:
moldy (slightly farinaceous?) (Hall)
Taste:
moldy (slightly farinaceous?) (Hall)
Microscopic:
spores 5-5.5 x 3.8-4.5 microns, nearly round, with blunt, coarse tubercles; basidia 4-spored, 27-38 x 5-7 microns, slenderly clavate, without basal clamp connection; cystidia not seen; hyphae monomitic, 2-5 microns wide, thin-walled to thick-walled, colorless to light brown, septa without clamp connections, (Breitenbach), spores 4.5-5.0 x 4.0-5.0 microns, nearly round to elliptic, coarsely tuberculate, inamyloid; basidia 4-spored, 40-50 x 7-8 microns, clavate; hyphae up to 8 microns wide, lacking clamp connections, incrusted, infrequently branched, (Hall)
Spore Deposit:
brown'' (Hall)
Notes:
Hydnellum auratile is found at least in WA and Europe according to Hall(3). There is a collection from BC at the University of British Columbia labeled as this species.
Habitat and Range
SIMILAR SPECIES
Other members of the Hydnellum aurantiacum complex have less bright orange color and larger spores, (Hall). H. aurantiacum has cap flesh white to pale orange, while that of H. auratile is orange even in young specimens, also ("it seems to us"), the cap surface is less distinctly zoned and cap thicker-fleshed in H. aurantiacum, (Breitenbach who also give spores of H. aurantiacum as larger at 5.5-6.5 x 4.5(5) microns, but note that other descriptions of H. aurantiacum do not give white cap flesh). See also SIMILAR section of Hydnellum complectipes.Habitat
single or gregarious in duff and moss under Pseudotsuga (Douglas-fir) and Tsuga (hemlock), (Hall), single or irregularly fused together in groups, on soil in mixed hardwood-conifer forests, (Breitenbach)
Synonyms
Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Thelephora cinnamomea Pers.