Summary:
Kuehneromyces mutabilis is recognized by 1) a smooth, hygrophanous, often 2-toned cap that is orange brown to red brown fading to yellowish brown, the margin translucent-striate when moist, 2) close to crowded gills that are pallid to dull cinnamon, 3) a scaly stem with a ring, and 4) clustered growth on wood in fall. Opinions still differ on whether Pholiota or Kuehneromyces is the correct generic name. Kuehneromyces mutabilis is common in the Pacific Northwest.

Cap:
1.5-6cm across, obtuse becoming convex, broadly umbonate, or even flat; hygrophanous, rusty-brown to orange-brown, reddish brown, or tawny when moist, fading from the center outward to yellowish brown, ocher, or yellowish buff as it dries "(often two-toned: yellowish at center and browner toward margin)"; "lubricous or slightly viscid when wet", "margin translucent-striate only when moist"^, (Arora), 1.5-6cm across, obtuse (rarely papillate), becoming bell-shaped or broadly conic, then convex, broadly umbonate, or flat, the margin often remaining downcurved; hygrophanous, reddish cinnamon or dull cinnamon or clay color, fading to pale alutaceous, (fading from the center outward or fading first in a zone between disc and margin); lubricous or viscid from a more or less separable pellicle, merely moist after rains have washed off the pellicle, smooth, bald or with inconspicuous white fibrils from veil when very young, margin translucent-striate when moist, opaque when faded, (Smith)

Flesh:
thin; "white or tinged brown"^, (Arora), thin except in disc, moderately soft, watery to moist; pallid, (Smith)

Gills:
"adnate to slightly decurrent, close"; "pallid soon becoming brown or dull cinnamon", (Arora), "broadly adnate to subdecurrent when young", usually becoming distinctly decurrent, close to crowded, broad in inner third, +/- 0.5cm in medium-sized mature cap; pallid soon developing a dull buff tinge and eventually becoming dull cinnamon, (Smith)

Stem:
3-10cm x 0.2-1(1.2)cm, equal or narrowing toward base, stuffed or hollow; whitish above the ring, becoming brownish in lower part, base sometimes blackish brown when old; smooth above the ring, and below the ring "covered with numerous small, often recurved scales (at least when fresh)", (Arora), 4-10cm x 0.2-1.2cm, equal or nearly so, narrowing toward base at times, stuffed or hollow; pallid to whitish at first over all except basal part, soon becoming brownish and finally blackish brown from base upward; somewhat silky-striate above the ring, and below the ring covered almost to base with distinct, recurved, pallid to brownish scales, base either naked or covered by white velvety mycelial tomentum, (Smith)

Veil:
whitish, forming small, membranous or fibrillose, superior ring, or sometimes disappearing, (Arora), forming an apical or subapical, membranous ring, the ring sometimes scaly on underside, or at times the ring "merely a zone of fibrils", (Smith)

Odor:
weak, agreeably spicy (not radish-like or farinaceous), (Smith), strong, pleasant (Lincoff(1)), not distinctive, (Courtecuisse)

Taste:
"mild or slightly unpleasant but not bitter", (Smith), sweetish (Lincoff(1)), mushroomy (Courtecuisse)

Microscopic spores:
spores 5.5-7.5 x 3.5-5 microns, elliptic, smooth, with a germ pore; chrysocystidia absent, (Arora), spores 5.5-7.5 x 3.7-4.5(6) microns, ovate in face view or subelliptic in side view, "obscurely inequilateral to subelliptic", "apex truncate from a well-developed pore", "smooth, wall fairly thin, in cross section terete to slightly compressed", pale in KOH, in Melzer''s reagent pale tawny to tawny; basidia 4-spored, 20-23 x 4-5 microns; pleurocystidia none, cheilocystidia abundant, 17-29 x 3.3-7 microns, subcylindric to fusoid-ventricose, some with a slight capitellum at top or more or less capitate from a mucilaginous secretion, thin-walled, colorless in KOH; clamp connections present, (Smith)

Spore deposit:
cinnamon-brown (Arora), cinnamon ("Verona brown" to "cinnamon"), (Smith, colors from Ridgway(1))

Notes:
Collections were examined by Smith(3) from BC, WA, OR, ID, NS, ON, AK, CO, ME, MI, NC, NY, TN, and WY. Breitenbach(4) give the distribution as North America, Europe, and Asia.

EDIBILITY

edible but not recommended because too easy to confuse with Galerina autumnalis and others, (Arora)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Pholiota mutabilis (Schaeff.) P. Kumm.