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Species Information
Summary: Hygrophorus inocybiformis is distinguished by a dark gray or dark gray brown fibrillose-scaly cap fringed at first with veil remnants, decurrent, thick, white gills that are tinted grayish, a stem with gray-brown fibrillose scales over a white ground color, elliptical large spores and long, narrow basidia. The description is derived from Hesler(1) except where indicated.
Collections were examined from ID and CA, (Hesler(1)). Bessette(1) indicates that it occurs in AK: "distributed in the mountains and conifer forests of the western United States including Alaska and Canada; infrequent". It is reported from Scandinavia, (Bessette(1)). There is a collection from BC at the University of British Columbia.
Cap: 3-6cm across, conic to obtuse becoming bell-shaped or obtusely umbonate or flat or slightly depressed, margin incurved; dark gray ("drab" Ridgway(1) color) over all or with dark drab fibrils over pallid background when old; "dry, innately fibrillose to fibrillose-squamulose", fringed with marginal remnants of fibrillose veil when young
Flesh: thin except on disc, soft, fragile; whitish or tinged pallid gray near cap surface, unchanging when cut or bruised, in stem white
Gills: short-decurrent or arcuate [arched], subdistant, broad, rather thick and firm; pallid to grayish buff ("pale olive-buff" Ridgway(1) color); edges even, (Hesler), alternating with short thick subgills, nearly white tinted gray to grayish buff, (Bessette(1))
Stem: 3-6cm x 0.5-1.2cm, subequal [more or less equal] or narrowing at base slightly, solid; white and bald to appressed-silky toward top, streaked with dark grayish brown fibrils below ring zone, dry
Veil: zone left by broken veil on stem; fibrillose remnants fringe the cap margin
Microscopic spores: spores 9-14 x (5)6-8 microns, elliptic, smooth, inamyloid; basidia 4-spored, 60-85 x 10-12 microns; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia not differentiated; gill tissue divergent; clamp connections abundant
Spore deposit: white (Bessette(1))
Habitat / Range
gregarious to scattered under Picea (spruce) and Abies balsamea (Balsam Fir)
Similar Species
Hygrophorus ''olivaceoalbus'' has a thick glutinous cap and stem with embedded gray fibrils, (Miller). Hygrophorus pustulatus is similar but Hygrophorus inocybiformis has a fibrillose veil and larger spores (those of H. pustulatus being 7-9 x 4-5 microns), (Hesler). Tricholoma terreum group and some Inocybe species are similar in general appearance, (Hesler).
