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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) a hygrophanous, reddish brown to orange brown, fibrillose, non-striate cap, 2) sinuate to adnate, well-spaced pinkish gills, 3) a dry, often striate stem colored as the cap, 4) white basal mycelium, 5) a white spore deposit, and 6) elliptic, spiny spores.
Mueller(2) examined collections of Laccaria proxima from BC, WA, OR, ID, NS, AK, CA, CO, FL, MI, MS, NC, OH, France, Italy, and Sweden. Cripps(2) reported it from MT. Osmundson(1) mention reports from Greenland, Finland, Italy, Norway, and Switzerland.
Cap: (0.7)1.5-6.9(8.3)cm across, bell-shaped to convex, often becoming flat to uplifted, sometimes depressed, margin incurved to decurved at first, entire to undulate, occasionally becoming eroded with age; hygrophanous, reddish brown to orange brown, fading lighter; "finely fibrillose to fibrillose, some becoming fibrillose-scaly to scaly or squarrose in age", margin "not striate, occasionally translucent-striate when faded", (Mueller), 2-8cm across, convex-flattened; reddish-brown to ocher when dry; "usually rather coarsely scaly-scurfy at center", (Phillips)
Gills: "sinuate to adnate, occasionally arcuate, subdistant to distant", up to 1cm broad; pinkish flesh color, (Mueller), "adnexed, broad, thick; pallid to pale pink", (Phillips)
Stem: (1.2-) 2.4-7.2(15.5)cm x 0.3-1.1cm, equal to subclavate [somewhat club-shaped], often slightly bulbous; most colored as cap, base occasionally darker, basal mycelium white; stem "dry, fibrillose, often longitudinally striate", striations colored as cap or darker red, (Mueller), 3-13cm x 0.3-0.5cm, fibrous; color as cap, with white down at base, (Phillips)
Veil: [none]
Odor: pleasant (Phillips)
Taste: pleasant (Phillips)
Microscopic spores: spores 8-11(12.5) x (6.5)7-8.7(9.2) microns (excluding ornamentation), broadly elliptic, elliptic or occasionally oblong, colorless, [presumably amyloid], echinulate [spiny] spines mostly 0.5-1 ┬╡m long, occasionally with one or two long spines up to 2 microns long at apex, crowded; basidia 4-spored, (23)33-62 x 8-15 microns, clavate, colorless; sterigmata up to 7 microns long; cheilocystidia often abundant, 19-66.5(92) x 2-8.5(16.5) microns, filamentous to subclavate, occasionally subcapitate, thin-walled, colorless, (Mueller); spores 7-9.5 x 6-7.5 microns, ovate, spiny, (Phillips)
Spore deposit: white (Mueller, Phillips)
Habitat / Range
scattered to gregarious on ground under conifers of Pinaceae, occasionally among mosses including Sphagnum; disturbed areas, (Mueller), under conifers and mixed woods, August to October, (Phillips), summer, fall
Similar Species
Laccaria montana is similar, but L. proxima is more robust with smaller, more finely echinulate spores, (Mueller). Laccaria laccata is similar but L. proxima is more robust and strongly colored, with a cap that is non-striate and slightly scaly or scaly, and with more elongate, finely echinulate spores, (Mueller). L. laccata is similar, but L. proxima has a more fibrillose stem and scalier cap, but is only told for sure by the broadly elliptical rather than round spores, (Arora).
