Summary:
Features include 1) a brick-colored to bay, dry cap with a lighter margin, 2) crowded, narrow gills that are whitish then greenish-tinted then purplish brown, 3) a long stem that is pale yellow to whitish in its upper part and ochraceous to reddish brown in its lower part, and 4) growth in tufts on or near old deciduous trunks and stumps. The online Species Fungorum, accessed October 10, 2012, synonymized most but not all of the forms and varieties of Hypholoma sublateritium with Hypholoma lateritium (Schaeff.) P. Kumm. Hypholoma lateritium is very common throughout the central and eastern United States, but rare west of the Great Plains.

Gills:
bluntly adnate and readily seceding, close but not crowded, 48-55 reaching stem, broadest 0.6-0.7cm at point of attachment, equal to the abruptly narrowed outer end, 3-5 tiers of subgills; white to pallid whitish, sometimes yellowish to olivaceous, "becoming clouded gray and finally dark purple-gray from spores"; edges even, (Smith(15)), "adnate, sometimes rounded, sometimes slightly decurrent", crowded, narrow, thin; whitish or pale yellow, becoming greenish, and finally purplish brown from spores, (Murrill), cream-colored to light yellow when young, later gray-brown to olive-brown, (Breitenbach), adnate, somewhat rounded, sometimes slightly decurrent, crowded, narrow; whitish or pale-yellow, becoming greenish and finally purplish-brown from ripening spores, (Murrill), adnate, crowded, narrow; pallid to purple-gray when mature (Phillips), attached, close, narrow; "whitish to pale greenish yellow, becoming purplish gray to purple-brown at maturity, not staining when cut or bruised", (Bessette)

Stem:
5-9cm x 0.5-1cm, equal, solid; pallid watery gray when young, white overall, soon staining yellowish and finally rusty brown from base up; appressed-fibrillose below the fibrillose ring zone left by the broken veil, at times almost fibrillose-scaly toward base, top silky to pruinose, (Smith(15)), 5-12cm x 0.5-1.2cm, more or less equal, thick, firm, stuffed or hollow; stramineous in upper part, ochraceous or reddish in lower part; bald or slightly fibrillose, with a arachnoid [cobwebby] ring when young, which becomes conspicuous from dark spores, (Murrill), 5-10cm x 0.5-1.5cm, whitish cream in upper part, reddish yellow in lower part, often staining slightly yellow, with slight ring zone at top, (Phillips), 5-10cm x 0.6-1.5cm, equal, hollow when old; "pale yellow to whitish above the ring, dull brown or grayish below, covered with reddish brown fibrils", (Bessette)

Veil:
cap margin with a pallid to pale yellowish appendiculate zone from broken veil, fibrillose ring zone left on stem by broken veil, (Smith(15)), "partial veil fibrous to cortinate, leaving a sparse superior ring or annular zone", (Bessette)

Odor:
none (Smith(15)), pleasant (Phillips), not distinctive (Bessette), pleasantly fungoid, (Breitenbach)

Taste:
mild to bitterish (Smith(15)), mild to bitter (Phillips, Bessette), usually somewhat bitter or astringent, not distinctive, (Breitenbach)

Microscopic spores:
spores 6-7.5 x 3.5-4 microns, smooth, with an obscure germ pore; basidia 4-spored, 17-20 x 5-7 microns; pleurocystidia "scattered to abundant, more or less embedded in hymenium", 24-36 x 10-15 microns, fusoid-ventricose to mucronate, "when revived in KOH usually containing a highly refractive amorphous body", cheilocystidia 26-34 x 7-9 microns, "fusoid-ventricose with obtuse to subcapitate apices", (Smith(15)), clamp connections mentioned for cap cuticle and basidia, (Breitenbach), spores 7-8 x 4 microns, elliptic, smooth, purplish-brown (Murrill), spores 6-7 x 4-4.5 microns, elliptic with indistinct apical germ pore, (Phillips), spores 6-7 x 3.5-4.5 microns, elliptic, smooth, with apical germ pore, (Bessette)

Spore deposit:
purple-brown (Phillips, Bessette), "dark vinaceous gray" or "deep slaty brown" (Smith(15), colors from Ridgway(1)), purple-gray (Miller)

Notes:
H. lateritium was reported at least from BC by Lowe(1), Davidson(1), and by Hardy in Victoria Naturalist 10(7):82-83 1954. One 1941 collection from BC is at the Pacific Forestry Centre (as Hypholoma sublateritium). There are collections from 2011 and 2013 from BC at the University of British Columbia (as H. sublateritium). The University of Washington has a collection from AK (as H. sublateritium). Smith(25) examined collections (as Naematoloma sublateritium) from NS, ON, QC, AL, IN, MD, MI, NC, NJ, NY, OH, PA, and TN. It is also found in Europe. Breitenbach(4) give the distribution as North America, Europe, and Asia.

EDIBILITY

in European literature has been reported as poisonous, but like many Canadian and American investigators, Smith ate and enjoyed it with no ill effects, (Smith(15)), with caution (Phillips), edible (Bessette), poisonous, (Courtecuisse)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Hypholoma sublateritium (Fr.) Quel.