E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
Features include 1) resupinate growth on much decayed wood, often spreading over loose debris or soil, 2) dense, narrow spines that are at first white, then ochraceous and finally brownish, 3) a margin that is white, often fibrillose, with white to buff rhizomorphs, 4) spores that are smooth, inamyloid and nearly cylindric to narrowly oval, 5) a monomitic hyphal system, the hyphae as a rule with dense cyanophilic warts.

Kavinia himantia has been found in BC, WA, OR, NS, ON, AZ, CO, IA, MA, NC, NM, NY, PA, TN, and WI, (Ginns). It has been found in Finland, Norway, and Sweden, (Eriksson).

Fruiting body:
"resupinate, effused, loosely adnate, consisting of a loose, white sterile subiculum", bearing dense aculei [narrow spines], which are "at first white, then ochraceous and at last brownish", about 0.5cm x 0.05cm, cylindric, slightly tapering toward apex which is rather obtuse in mature specimens; "margin white, variable, often fibrillose"; "rhizomorphs present in the periphery and in the subiculum", (Eriksson), resupinate, broadly effused [spread out], loosely adherent, byssoid [cottony], hydnaceous [spiny], the spines up to 0.05cm long, buff; margin white, arachnoid [cobwebby] to weakly fimbriate [fringed], "with abundant buff to white rhizomorphs, these penetrating the wood and surrounding humus", (Lindsey), resupinate, widely effused, consisting of waxy, pelliculose spore-bearing layer that is 0.005-0.02cm thick and avellaneous, and a loose, floccose, subicular layer that is 0.02-0.1cm thick and white, sometimes with large areas of white, cottony mycelium not covered by spore-bearing layer; margin floccose or fibrillose and with white rhizomorphic strands running over the substrate; spines 0.6cm or less long, round in cross-section, subulate [awl-shaped], pointed or obtuse, (Miller, L.W.)

Microscopic:
SPORES "white or cream-coloured", 8-10(12) x 4-5 microns, subcylindric to narrowly oval, smooth, thin-walled, contents with oil droplets; BASIDIA 4-spored, 25-35(45) x 6-8 microns, clavate, "as a rule basally tapering into a hypha-like part of varying length", with basal clamp connection, contents with oil droplets; CYSTIDIA none; HYPHAE monomitic, 3-4 microns wide, distinct, thin-walled in young parts, somewhat thick-walled in mature hyphae, as a rule with dense cyanophilic warts (the hyphae also described as asperulate), (Eriksson), SPORES 8.5-10 x 3-3.5 microns, narrowly elliptic to subfusiform, smooth to bumpy, inamyloid, slightly olive-green; BASIDIA 4-spored, 30-50 x 5-6 microns, clavate, with basal clamp connection, "some pleurobasidia present, developing along edges of teeth and growing outward"; HYPHAE monomitic, SUBICULAR HYPHAE 1.5-3.5 microns wide, colorless, "smooth to roughened, some with coarse crystalline encrustation, some becoming slightly thick-walled, some ampullate at the septa", (Lindsey), SPORES 10-12 x 3.5-4.5 microns, cylindric-elliptic, attenuated at one end, smooth, colorless, granular or guttulate; BASIDIA 2-4-spored, 25-40 x 6-8.5 microns, sterigmata long; HYPHAE 2-4 microns wide, "faintly roughened, with numerous clamp connections, often swollen at the septa, with scattered masses of crystalline material", (Miller, L.W.)