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Species Information
Summary: Hygrophorus speciosus var. speciosus is most easily distinguished from the red to orange Hygrocybes by white to pale yellow decurrent gills, a viscid stem, and the preference for larch and pine. Var. kauffmanii (in northeastern North America including Massachusetts, Maine, and Michigan), differs in its robust stature (cap 2-8cm, stem 3-10cm x 0.8-1.5(2)cm), and a white partial veil underneath the slimy layer that forms a thin fleeting fibrillose ring. Arora''s and Barron''s descriptions are not specifically for var. speciosus.
Hesler(1) examined collections of var. speciosus from WA, ID, OR, ON, QC, AL, AZ, MA, ME, MI, NY, PA, and TN, (Hesler(1)). There are collections (with variety unspecified) from BC at the University of British Columbia. Hygrophorus speciosus was reported from AB (Kernaghan). It has also been found in Europe including Switzerland (Breitenbach).
Gills: adnato-decurrent, distant or subdistant, rather narrow; white to yellowish, edges yellowish; edges even, (Hesler), adnate to decurrent, "well-spaced, thick, soft, waxy"; "white to pale yellow, the edges usually yellow", (Arora)
Stem: 4-10cm x 0.4-0.8cm, stuffed, at times the base enlarged - club-shaped; white or whitish, at times becoming pale tawny or cap-colored, the gluten staining the stem dull orange as it dries; top white-pruinose above the glutinous, fugacious [fleeting] tawny-reddish ring-like outer veil, (Hesler), 3-10cm x 0.4-1(1.5)cm, equal or widening downwards; white or with yellow to orange stains over lower part; viscid to slimy when moist, at least in lower part, (Arora)
Veil: glutinous, fleeting, tawny-reddish ring-like outer veil, (Hesler), single (double in var. kauffmanii), outer layer fleeting, leaving slime on stem, inner layer when present in var. kauffmanii fibrillose, sometimes forming slight ring on stem, (Arora)
Odor: mild (Hesler)
Taste: mild (Hesler)
Microscopic spores: spores 8-10 x 4.5-6 microns, elliptic, smooth, inamyloid; basidia mostly 2-spored, some 4-spored, rarely 1-spored, 48-66 x 5-8 microns; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia absent; gill tissue divergent; clamp connections present on cap cuticle hyphae, (Hesler), spores 8-10 x 4.5-6 microns (Arora)
Spore deposit: white (Arora)
Habitat / Range
gregarious to subcespitose [more or less in tufts] "on soil, in bogs and under larch", (Hesler), scattered to densely gregarious in woods and bogs under conifers, especially Larix (larch) but also Pinus (pine), (Arora)
