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Species Information
Summary: The principal fieldmarks are the orange to brown cap and stem, decurrent gills that are orange and dichotomously forked, and white spore deposit. It is common in the Pacific Northwest. Some authors consider Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca a member of Paxillaceae.
Collections were examined from BC, WA, OR, ID, and also NS, ON, QC, SK, AK, CA, MA, ME, MI, NC, NH, NM, NY, TN, Mexico, France, and United Kingdom, (Bigelow(6)). The distribution includes north temperate parts of the world and Australia.
Cap: 2-8(14)cm across, convex becoming flat or somewhat depressed, margin at first inrolled; "typically some shade of dark orange, brownish-orange, brownish-yellow, yellowish-brown, olive-brown, or dark brown (often darker or browner at center and orange to yellowish-orange at margin), but in one form whitish and in another blackish"; "dry, often somewhat felty or velvety", (Arora), 2-9cm across, flat-convex, then depressed or subcyathiform [somewhat cup-shaped], margin involute [inrolled] at first; orange-ochraceous, becoming fuscous or fuliginous; villous to subtomentose, becoming bald, (Corner), dark orange-brown to dark olivaceous brown or blackish brown when young, disc "often remaining dark for some time, margin soon becoming brighter and orange", "fading with age and exposure, occasionally whitish from the first"; margin ribbed at times but not striate (Bigelow)
Flesh: thin; "pallid or tinged orange or cap color", (Arora), thick in center of cap, cottony-floccose, soft; white to yellowish, (Corner)
Gills: "decurrent, close, fairly thin and narrow at maturity (may be blunt when young)", usually forked dichotomously; "typically deep orange to bright orange, but sometimes pale orange or in one form yellowish", (Arora), decurrent, crowded, 24-34 primaries, 0.1-0.2cm wide, edge blunt, gills 3-5 times dichotomous, easily separable from cap; deep orange; often slightly veined on sides, (Corner), narrow to moderately broad (up to 0.5cm), thick in buttons, thin when old; orange and usually brighter than cap, (Bigelow)
Stem: 2-10cm x (0.2)0.5-1(2)cm, "central or off-center, equal or enlarged toward base, often curved"; "yellowish to orange or brownish-orange or colored more or less like cap"; dry, (Arora), 2-5cm x 0.3-0.9cm, subcylindric or widening downwards, fibrous soft; bister or ochraceous, fuliginous when old; subtomentose or subvillous, (Corner), stuffed becoming hollow; pale orange when young, darker when old and especially at base; bald or fibrillose-striate, (Bigelow)
Microscopic spores: spores 5-8 x 2.5-4.5 microns, elliptic, smooth, often dextrinoid, (Arora), 5-8 x 3.5-5.5 microns, elliptic to subcylindric, smooth, wall slightly thickened, 1-2 droplets; basidia 4-spored, 28-40 x 8-11 microns, clavate; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia none, (Corner), clamp connections mentioned for basidia and cap cuticle, (Breitenbach)
Spore deposit: white to creamy (Arora), white (Miller)
Habitat / Range
solitary, scattered or in groups or tufts "in humus and on rotting wood, usually under conifers", (Arora), late summer and fall (Bacon)
Similar Species
Chanterelles can be somewhat similar but Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca group is less robust, the cap browner and less wavy or frilled, the flesh flimsier, the gills thinner, crowded and blade-like at maturity and usually oranger than those of the chanterelle, and the growth sometimes on rotten wood. |Omphalotus olivascens (Jack O''Lantern) is somewhat similar. It is rare in the Pacific Northwest (recorded from OR), has olivaceous as well as orange colors, has less prominent forking of gills, and grows on hardwood, usually in clusters: it may be one reason for reports of poison reactions. |Hygrophoropsis rufa, according to Holec(1), is a rare species at least in Europe, has been differentiated by macroscopic and molecular data, and may be commonly misidentified as H. aurantiaca. H. rufa differs from H. aurantiaca by the orange-brown to dark brown cap surface in the former and yellow-orange to red-orange cap in the latter. Observed differences in spores in the Czech Republic, being slightly smaller and thick-walled in H. rufa, have to be confirmed using a larger set of collections. The 10-90 percentile of spore measurements were 5.6-6.4 x 3.6-4.4 microns in a H. rufa collection and 6.4-8.0 x 4.0-5.2 microns in three collections of Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca. Measurements by Reid were 5.0-5.75 x 3.0-3.75 microns for one collection of H. rufa, saying that the spores were possibly smaller than those of H. aurantiaca. However, measurements by Knudsen and Taylor overlap more - 5.0-6.5(7.0) x 3.0-4.0 microns for H. rufa and 5-7 x 3.5-4.5 microns for H. aurantiaca, and the group of H. aurantiaca is known for large variability in spore size. Thicker spore walls were also mentioned by Knudsen and Taylor. |As well as paler taxa (H. pallida (Peck) Kreisel, H. aurantiaca f. albida (Fr.) Gillet), there are other dark-colored taxa in the Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca complex including 1) H. fuscosquamula P.D. Orton (whitish cream or pale yellowish ochraceous cap with numerous olive-brown to sepia small fibrillose squamules), 2) H. aurantiaca var. nigripes (Pers.) Kuehner & Romagnesi with black brown stem but cap that is colored like H. aurantiaca, and 3) Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca var. atrotomentosa Jaccotet with a dark brown cap which may be the same as H. rufa. (Holec(1)). It is not clear which of these taxa may occur in the Pacific Northwest. |See also SIMILAR section of Cantharellus formosus, Craterellus tubaeformis, and Tapinella panuoides.
