Summary:
Features include 1) a hygrophanous, violet to brownish purple cap, 2) sinuate well-spaced gills that are purple to lavender; 3) a long, dry, striate, purple violet stem with violet mycelium at base, 4) mild odor and taste, 5) growth under conifers, 6) a white spore deposit, and 7) finely spiny spores that are nearly round to broadly elliptic. Laccaria amethysteo-occidentalis is common in the Pacific Northwest.

Cap:
1-6.5(8.9)cm across, obtuse to convex to flat, often depressed, margin inrolled to decurved [downcurved] at first; hygrophanous, deep purple when fresh, fading to vinaceous, finally becoming buff; not striate when fresh, but sometimes translucent-striate on fading, finely fibrillose to fibrillose-scaly, (Mueller(1))

Flesh:
thin, concolorous with lighter gray purple to white areas intermixed; in stem colored as in cap, (Mueller(1)), violet (Phillips)

Gills:
sinuate to arcuate, subdistant to distant, narrow to broad, thick, occasionally waxy; dark violaceous, fading lighter (near "lavender" Ridgway(1) color), (Mueller(1)), royal purple to lilac when young, "and retaining purple tones longer than cap, before fading to pinkish buff", (Siegel)

Stem:
1.8-11.5cm x 0.3-1.2cm, equal to subclavate [somewhat club-shaped], occasionally slightly bulbous; purple, often with lighter violet to white scattered sectors, basal mycelium violet; dry, longitudinally striate, occasionally with recurved [upcurved] scales, (Mueller(1)), purple, purplish gray, purple-brown, pinkish buff to grayish beige, "typically with numerous whitish or pale buff loose fibrils and scurfs", (Siegel)

Odor:
not distinctive (Phillips)

Taste:
not distinctive (Phillips)

Microscopic spores:
spores (6.4)7.4-10.6 x 6.4-9.2 microns excluding ornamentation, nearly round to broadly elliptic, occasionally round or elliptic to almond-shaped, echinulate [spiny], echinulae < 0.5-1.4(1.8) microns long, (mean 1 +/- 0.3 microns), crowded, inamyloid, acyanophilic, hilar appendix 1.3-2 microns long, prominent, and truncate, plage present, occasionally one droplet; basidia 4-spored, 34-56.5 x 9.7-14.7 microns, clavate, elongate, colorless or in young specimens vinaceous brown in mass, sterigmata up to 9 microns long; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia often abundant, extending well beyond basidia, 36.5-66.5 x 12-18.4 microns, subclavate to clavate, colorless, thin-walled, colorless, (Mueller(1)), spines on spores 1 micron wide at base, (Mueller(2))

Spore deposit:
white (Mueller(2))

Notes:
Mueller(1) examined collections from BC, WA, OR, and CA. Oregon State University has a collection from ID.

EDIBILITY

yes (Phillips)