Summary:
Features include 1) a dry, hygrophanous, pinkish flesh-color to ochraceous tan cap that fades to pinkish ocher or buff, 2) adnate gills that are vinaceous to purplish, fading to pale lilac or pallid, 3) a stem colored as the cap but with lilac tomentum at base, 4) a white spore deposit, and 5) spiny, broadly elliptic spores. |Laccaria bicolor seems to be fairly common in the Pacific Northwest. |Laccaria has been a model for the study of ectomycorrhizal fungi, in part because representatives are able to form stable cultures for study. Wilson, A.W.(2) studied four different DNA areas in an attempt to delineate the genus better and draw conclusions about the drivers of its evolution. |Laccaria bicolor was the first ectomycorrhizal fungal genome sequenced. The species was also used to demonstrate that nitrogen from the springtails feeding on it can be transferred to a tree associated with the Laccaria.

Cap:
2-5cm across, convex-flattened; ochraceous tan drying to pinkish ocher; smooth to slightly scaly, (Phillips), 0.8-7cm across, convex to flat, often depressed, margin decurved [downcurved] to flat, "entire to undulate, often eroded"; hygrophanous, pinkish flesh color, fading to buff; "finely fibrillose, fibrillose-scaly, or occasionally scaly", not striate, (Mueller), cap pinkish flesh-colored, at times with an admixture of brown or orange, (Ammirati), pinkish brown to pale yellow-brown; dry, fibrillose to somewhat scaly, (Bessette)

Flesh:
thin; whitish ocher, (Phillips), thin, tapering quickly to margin; light vinaceous, (Mueller)

Gills:
adnate; pale lilac to pallid when old, (Phillips), "adnate to arcuate, subdistant to distant, broad, thick"; light vinaceous, fading to light pinkish flesh color, then light flesh color, (Mueller), attached and slightly short-decurrent, close to somewhat distant, moderately broad, several tiers of subgills; purplish to vinaceous when young, fading to pale pinkish flesh color when old, (Bessette)

Stem:
5-14cm x 0.4-1cm, equal, colored as cap, but with lilac tomentum at base; fibrillose, (Phillips), 2.3-8.5(13)cm x 0.3-0.6(1)cm, equal, subclavate [somewhat club-shaped] or slightly bulbous; colored as cap, striations colored as ground color or slightly darker red-brown; "dry, fibrillose, longitudinally striate"; mycelium violet when fresh, hygrophanous, fading to white, [leading to confusion with Laccaria laccata], often copious, (Mueller), pinkish brown to dark purple brown; mycelium lilac fading to whitish when old, (Bessette)

Odor:
pleasant (Phillips), not distinctive (Bessette)

Taste:
pleasant (Phillips), not distinctive (Bessette)

Microscopic spores:
spores (5.5)7-8.7(10) x (5.5)6-7.8(9.2) microns excluding ornamentation, nearly round to broadly elliptic, occasionally round or elliptic, echinulate, echinulae 1-1.8 microns long, 1 micron wide at base, colorless, hilar appendix 1.3-2 microns long, prominent, truncate, plage present, occasionally uniguttulate; basidia 4-spored, 28.5-55 x 7.4-13 microns, clavate, colorless; cheilocystidia absent to abundant, 24.5-55 x 2.5-8 microns, filamentous to subclavate, colorless, thin-walled, (Mueller), spores 7-9.5 x 6-7.5 microns, oval, spiny, (Phillips), spores 6-10 x 6-9 microns; basidia mostly 4-spored; pleurocystidia absent, (Bessette)

Spore deposit:
white (Phillips)

Notes:
Collections were examined from BC, WA, OR, ID, NB, ON, AK, CA, and MI, (Mueller(2)). L. bicolor is also found in FL (Bessette), and reported from Greenland, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and Russia (Kamchatka), (Osmundson). It has also been reported from Africa.

EDIBILITY

yes, but not worthwhile, (Phillips)