Details about map content are available here Click on the map dots to view record details.
Species Information
Summary: Features include white overall color, a viscid, non-striate cap, white gills that become pale pinkish buff, and a dry, white stem. The description is derived from Hesler(1) for Hygrophorus piceae Kuehner and Romagnesi except where noted.
Hesler(1) examined collections from WA, OR, ID, CA, MA, ME, MI, and NY. It was reported by Schalkwijk-Barendsen for BC and she says it is "frequent on the Pacific Coast, in the Rocky Mountains, and on the [Canadian] prairies". There are collections from BC at the University of British Columbia. It also occurs in Europe including Switzerland (Breitenbach(3)).
Cap: 1-4(6)cm across, convex, then flattening or with uplifted margin; snow white; viscid, bald to innately appressed fibrillose under the viscidity, (Hesler), 1-3(5)cm across, hemispheric to bell-shaped when young, later convex to flat, sometimes turbinate [top-shaped], margin incurved for a long time, acute; white, at times somewhat cream-colored toward center; "finely appressed-fibrillose to smooth, slimy when moist, dull when dry", margin even, (Breitenbach)
Flesh: soft; white, (Hesler), thick in center, thin toward margin; white, (Breitenbach)
Gills: adnate becoming decurrent when old, subdistant (25-30 reaching stem), broad, rather thin, some forked near margin; snow white becoming pale pinkish buff; edges even, (Hesler), decurrent, 30-35 reaching stem, 3-5 subgills between neighboring gills, "occasionally forked and with anastomoses"; whitish to light cream, ocherish when old; edges smooth, (Breitenbach)
Stem: (1.5)3-5cm x 0.3-0.5(1.2)cm, narrowing downward, hollow; moist to dry (no gelatinous veil present in button phase), bald over lower half, upper half covered by white cottony fibrillose coating but not scabrous, (Hesler), 3.0-6.0(7.0) x 0.3-0.5(0.8)cm, "cylindric, at times somewhat bent", solid; white; smooth to somewhat longitudinally fibrillose, "almost dry to somewhat viscid, apex white-furfuraceous", (Breitenbach), up to 8cm long and 0.6cm thick, equal; white; silky, smooth, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen)
Odor: not distinctive (Hesler)
Taste: not distinctive (Hesler)
Microscopic spores: spores 6-8(10) x 4-5(6) microns, elliptic, smooth, inamyloid; basidia 4-spored, 48-62 x 6-8 microns; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia none, gill tissue divergent; clamp connections rare on cuticular hyphae, (Hesler), spores 6-8.4 x 3.8-6.4 microns, elliptic, smooth, iodine negative, with droplets; basidia 4-spored; gill trama bilateral; cystidia not seen; cap cuticle an ixotrichoderm, (Breitenbach)
Spore deposit: white (Schalkwijk-Barendsen, Breitenbach)
Habitat / Range
under Picea (spruce) and in swampy areas, (Hesler), single to gregarious, under Picea in montane pastures, summer to fall, (Breitenbach)
Similar Species
Cuphophyllus niveus has a cap that is translucent-striate almost to the center when wet, whereas the cap of H. piceae is not translucent-striate, (Stuntz). Cuphophyllus virgineus has a longitudinally fibrillose stem whereas H. piceae has a smooth to somewhat longitudinally fibrillose stem with a white-furfuraceous apex not found in C. virgineus, and they differ microscopically in the structure of the gill trama which is irregular in C. virgineus and bilateral in H. piceae, (Breitenbach). Hesler(1) say the stem of C. virgineus is smooth, bald, and sometimes pruinose, and stem of H. piceae has the upper half covered by a white cottony fibrillose covering. Hesler(1) also describe the same microscopic gill trama difference, interwoven in C. virgineus and divergent in H. piceae. Hygrophorus borealis has moist to lubricous cap, (Hesler). H. eburneus is similar but H. piceae is less ivory in color, smaller and less slimy (dry on stem). See also SIMILAR section of Hygrophorus pusillus.
