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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) a reddish brown, dry cap that is minutely granular to fibrillose-scaly, 2) whitish flesh that with exposure turns purplish gray then blackish without an intervening reddish phase, 3) white pores that darken but do not become blue, 4) a stem with pallid scabers (fine scales) that become dark brown to black, the stem base sometimes turning blue, 5) growth under aspen or birch, and 6) brown spore deposit. |In addition to the type variety from CA, Thiers describes var. brunneum from CA with a young cap that is dark brown to reddish brown and more or less bald (as opposed to brick red to ferruginous and tomentose to fibrillose for the type variety when young), (Thiers(13)). |"The dark brown pileus when young with a tendency to fade somewhat with age and the dull, dark brown color when dried readily distinguish this variety from others that have been described." (Thiers(13)). |Smith(35) describes from MI var. luteopallidum with tubes that become yellowish before the darkening of maturity as well as several invalidly published forms. |Leccinum insigne is common in suitable habitat.
Distribution includes CA (type variety and var. brunneum) and MI (var. luteopallidum). L. insigne is reported from WA and ID, (A. Parker, pers. comm.), BC (M. Beug pers. comm.), and MT (L. Evans, pers. comm.). The RANGE includes eastern Canada south to NJ, west to the northern Rocky Mountains, south to the Sierra Nevada of CA and the Southwest (Bessette).
Cap: 4-15cm, convex becoming broadly convex; rusty orange to rusty cinnamon or rusty brown; dry, minutely granular to fibrillose-scaly; margin with band of sterile tissue when young, (Bessette), 6-17cm, convex becoming broadly convex to flat-convex to highly irregular with broad shallow depressions or pits; color variable but typically some shade of reddish brown, and somewhat variegated when old; dry to moist, occasionally subviscid when wet, bald to finely velvety to subtomentose when young, not changing or sometimes becoming obscurely appressed-fibrillose or appressed-scaly when old, often finely areolate to cracked-areolate when old; margin with sterile flaps of tissue, (Thiers(1)), color variable: bright orange to rusty orange, reddish orange, orange-brown, reddish brown, or cinnamon, often paler or duller (tan, brown, or dull orange-brown) when old, (Arora)
Flesh: white, when exposed turning purplish gray then blackish without an intervening reddish phase, (Bessette), 1.5-3cm thick, white, with exposure changing to fuscous with no intermediate reddish stage, color changes sometimes slow in developing; blue discoloration sometimes developing in stem base, (Thiers(1)), turning bluish gray to purplish gray or fuscous when bruised or cut, but sometimes very slowly or erratically, (Arora)
Pores: 1-3 per mm, round, "whitish, slowly becoming dingy yellow" and finally yellow-brown to olive-brown when old, not turning blue when bruised; tube layer 1-2cm thick, (Bessette), up to 1mm, angular; white when young, olive buff to yellowish when mature; tube layer 1-2cm thick, narrowly depressed at first, becoming broadly and deeply depressed when old (somewhat ventricose), colored as pores, (Thiers(1)), not turning blue when bruised but may stain yellowish to brown, lavender, or vinaceous, (Arora)
Stem: 7-12cm x 1-2cm, widening downward, often ventricose at base, solid; whitish, with brownish scabers that darken to blackish when mature; dry; partial veil and annulus absent, (Bessette), 8-13cm x 1-2cm at top, equal to club-shaped, solid; dry, ground color whitish, scabers close and pallid when young, typically becoming dark brown to black and often more widely spaced when mature, "often very fine, and sometimes more or less collapsing" when old, (Thiers(1)), rather tough and fibrous, scabers initially pallid but become reddish orange to brown and finally blackish by maturity, stem base often staining or discoloring blue, (Arora)
Chemical Reactions: flesh stains bluish with application of FeSO4 (Bessette)
Odor: not distinctive (Bessette)
Taste: not distinctive (Bessette)
Microscopic: spores 11-16 x 4-5 microns, subfusoid [somewhat spindle-shaped], smooth, yellowish; caulocystidia clavate to ventricose-mucronate, (Bessette), spores (11)13-16(18) x 4-6 microns, subfusoid to subcylindric, smooth, ochraceous in Melzer''s reagent, pale ochraceous in KOH, walls moderately thickened; basidia 4-spored, 29-34 x 8-12 microns, clavate to pear-shaped, colorless in KOH; hymenial cystidia scattered to numerous, 27-43 x 7-13 microns, clavate to clavate with elongated tapering apices, colorless to dark brown in KOH; cap cuticle a trichodermium of tangled hyphal tips, hyphae 4-7 microns wide, walls sometimes roughened, pigment globules not developing in Melzer''s reagent, "terminal cells with obtuse apices, or with tapered apices"; caulocystidia "29-39 x 10-14 microns, clavate to fusoid, dark brown in KOH, thin-walled"; clamp connections absent, (Thiers(1))
Spore Deposit: dark yellow-brown to olive-brown (Bessette), brown (Thiers(1))
Habitat / Range
scattered or in groups on ground under aspen or birch (Bessette), associated primarily if not exclusively with aspen (Arora), gregarious to scattered in soil under aspens, (Thiers(13)), spring, summer, and fall, (Miller)
Similar Species
Leccinum aurantiacum has cap flesh that stains in a progression from reddish or pinkish to fuscous or blackish (Bessette). In comparison to L. aurantiacum, L. insigne is distinguished by "the characteristic color changes occurring in the flesh when exposed, the rusty red color of the pileus and the absence of pigment globules in the cuticular hyphae when mounted in Melzer''s reagent", (Thiers(13)). See also SIMILAR section of Leccinum discolor.
