Summary:
Features include 1) small size, 2) a honey ocher to yellowish, non-viscid, bald cap, 3) gills that are whitish to yellowish to grayish brown then violet brown, 4) a long stem that is light yellowish in its upper part, becoming brownish orange from the base up, 5) a veil leaving white fibrillose remnants on stem, 6) growth on sphagnum moss, 7) dull cinnamon brown to purple brown spore deposit, and 8) microscopic characters. In discussing Hypholoma elongatipes (Peck) A.H. Sm., Smith(13) noted the brown spore deposit, and later when describing Pholiota elongatipes (Peck) Smith & Hesler, the authors emphasized the dull cinnamon brown spore deposit but gave Hypholoma elongatum (Fr.) Ricken as a synonym. The spore print of the latter is given as purple brown by Breitenbach(4) (who include Hypholoma elongatipes (Peck) Smith as a synonym). Breitenbach(4) list Hypholoma elongatum sensu Rick. (as opposed to H. elongatum (Pers.: Fr.) Rick.) as a synonym of H. ericaeoides Orton.

Cap:
0.6-2cm across, convex to obtuse, becoming broadly convex to nearly flat when old; hygrophanous, pale to medium yellow with marginal area olivaceous when old and wet, paler yellow when faded or often retaining an olive cast; surface bald but "margin faintly fringed with fibrils at the time the veil breaks", (Smith(3)), 1-2.5cm across, conic to bell-shaped when young, becoming broadly convex to flat when old; "honey yellow to greenish yellow, yellowish at the margin"; translucent-striate to shallowly sulcate [grooved] at margin, (Bessette), not viscid (Courtecuisse), 0.7-2cm across, convex becoming flat with slightly incurved margin, margin sharp; "orange-brown in the center, increasingly paler to green-yellow to gray-yellow toward the margin, margin sometimes almost whitish"; smooth, dull, buttery and striate up to 2/3 the distance to center when moist, margin hung with veil remnants when very young, (Breitenbach)

Flesh:
thin, soft; pale yellow, (Smith(3)), whitish (Bessette), thin; pale yellow to orange yellow, (Breitenbach)

Gills:
adnate, subdistant, broad; "whitish to pallid yellowish at first, gradually becoming clay color to nearly wood-brown", edges may be white; edges sometimes fringed, (Smith(3)), attached, subdistant; "pale tawny, becoming gray-brown or pinkish brown at maturity", (Bessette), yellowish then lilaceous brownish; edges whitish, (Courtecuisse), ascending and narrowly adnate, 13-20 reaching stem, 3-5(7) subgills between neighboring pair of gills, broad; "whitish to gray-beige when young, violet brown when old"; edges white-floccose, (Breitenbach)

Stem:
4-10cm x 0.15-0.25cm, equal, straight to flexuous [wavy], fragile; pallid above at first but soon yellowish, becoming tawny from the base upward in aging; silky in upper part, with fibrillose flecks downward from the remains of the thin veil, (Smith(3)), 4-15.5cm x 0.1-0.3cm, equal; straw-yellow, reddish brown toward the base; white-pruinose, (Bessette), faintly patterned with whitish silky fibrils, (Courtecuisse), 3-6cm x 0.1-0.15cm, cylindric, sometimes widened at top, flexuous toward the base, hollow, elastic; light yellow at top, increasingly orange-yellow toward base; smooth, dull, "entire length longitudinally whitish-fibrillose, almost zoned in places, base attached to the Sphagnum and white tomentose", (Breitenbach)

Veil:
fibrillose flecks on lower stem are remnants of thin veil; cap margin "faintly fringed with fibrils at the time the veil breaks", (Smith(3)), partial veil and ring absent (Bessette)

Odor:
not distinctive (Smith(3)), not distinctive (Bessette), slightly musty (Breitenbach)

Taste:
not distinctive (Smith(3)), not distinctive to slightly bitter, (Bessette), mild, somewhat unpleasant, (Breitenbach)

Microscopic spores:
spores 8-11(12) x 5-6(7) microns, ovate to subelliptic in face view, mostly elliptic in side view, smooth, obscurely truncate from germ pore less than 1 micron wide, wall less than 0.5 microns thick, pale tawny in KOH, scarcely darker in Melzer''s; basidia 4-spored, 28-32 x 8-9 microns, clavate, yellow in KOH; pleurocystidia of 2 kinds: chrysocystidia 26-34 x 8-12 microns, leptocystidia 30-36 x 5-9 microns, fusoid-ventricose, apex obtuse; clamp connections present, (Smith(3)), spores 9-13 x 5.5-7 microns, elliptic, smooth, pale brown, germ pore present, (Bessette), spores 9-11.7 x 5.3-7.2 microns, elliptic, smooth, slightly thick-walled, with indistinct or no germ pore, light gray-yellow; basidia (2-)4-spored, 25-32 x 8-11 microns, clavate, with basal clamp; pleurocystidia modified as chrysocystidia, 35-50 x 12-15 microns, fusiform-ventricose, with an apical protrusion, cheilocystidia 15-40 x 5.5-7.5 microns, cylindric to lageniform, with occasional interspersed chrysocystidia; cap cuticle of periclinal hyphae 2-8 microns wide, almost colorless, encrusted, septa with clamp connections, "with periclinal hyphae below them composed of oval to fusiform, brown-pigmented and encrusted cells", (Breitenbach)

Spore deposit:
dull cinnamon brown (Smith(3)), purplish brown (Bessette), purple brown, (Breitenbach)

Notes:
Hypholoma elongatum has been reported from BC (Paul Kroeger pers. comm., collections at University of British Columbia). Pholiota elongatipes (Peck) Smith & Hesler was examined from WA, OR, MI, NY, TN, WV, ON, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (Smith(3)) and ON (Smith(13)).

EDIBILITY

unknown (Bessette)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Hypholoma elongatipes (Peck) A.H. Sm.
Naematoloma elongatum (Fr.) Konrad
Pholiota elongatipes (Peck) A.H. Sm. & Hesler