Summary:
Features include 1) a relatively small, convex to depressed to asymmetrically spathulate or fan-shaped, pinkish ocher cap with a lobed margin, 2) broad, pale, serrate gills, 3) a leathery, central to off-center, reddish brown stem that is usually fluted, 4) a peppery taste, and 5) growth on wood and debris. Breitenbach(3) say that they understand Lentinellus omphalodes (Fr.) Karst. to include Lentinellus tridentinus (Sacc. & Syd.) Singer, L. bisus Quel., and L. flabelliformis (Bolt.: Fr.) Ito.

Cap:
1.5-5cm, "convex to nearly flat or depressed to umbilicate; beige with a fleshy or brownish tone, darkening to brown; smooth, moist", (Phillips), (0.3)1-4.4(6)cm, broadly convex to flat-depressed; hygrophanous, 'margin "pinkish buff" to "avellaneous," unchanged or darkening at center to "cinnamon buff" "vinaceous buff" to "wood brown," becoming dingy brown to "sayal brown" in age'; not viscid, (Miller(10)), up to 3cm, "depressed to asymmetrically spathulate", margin wavy to lobed; pinkish ocher, (Courtecuisse), 0.5-4cm broad, omphalioid, auriscalpioid [like Auriscalpium] to occasionally flabelliform [fan-shaped], tough, deeply umbilicate, margin inrolled; "wood brown", "snuff brown", "cinnamon buff", "sayal brown", "Verona brown" to "tawny olive" when fresh, dull ocher when dry, with areas and streaks of dark brown; smooth, subglabrous [nearly bald] to suede-like, delicately radially fibrillose to occasionally radially ridged, margin not striate, (Petersen)

Flesh:
pallid (Phillips), in cap soft, off-white to sordid "avellaneous"; stem 'with a white soft pith surrounded by firm, dense tissue', (Miller(10))

Gills:
"adnate, nearly distant, broad"; "whitish then creamy pinkish brown"; distinctly saw-toothed, (Phillips), adnate, subdistant; "pale pinkish cinnamon" to "pale pinkish buff"; finely serrate [saw-toothed], (Miller(10)), adnate to somewhat decurrent; pale; edge irregularly serrate, (Courtecuisse), short-decurrent, subdistant, broad; "cream buff", "avellaneous" to pallid tan; margin "subentire, serrate to coarsely serrate", (Petersen)

Stem:
0.4-3.5cm x 0.1-0.3cm, central or off-center; "beige-brown to reddish brown; dry, usually with longitudinal furrows", (Phillips), (0.5)0.9-4.5(6)cm x (0.05)0.15-0.4cm, uniformly present, central to slightly off-center, cartilaginous; "avellaneous" at top to red-brown, "wood brown" over the rest; dry, bald, with ridges and furrows, (Miller(10)), often eccentric, rather leathery, (Courtecuisse), 0.5-2.5cm x 0.2-0.5cm, narrowing somewhat downward, "usually irregularly compressed or grooved"; "avellaneous", "army brown", "wood brown" to "Natal brown", apparently bruising dark brown when torn, basal mycelium somewhat paler, "cinnamon", "avellaneous" to "vinaceous buff"; stem smooth to bald, (Petersen)

Odor:
sharp (Phillips), fungoid (Miller(10)), none (Miller(14)), weak, spicy-peppery (typical of family), (Petersen)

Taste:
peppery (Phillips), mild at first then peppery (Miller(10)), very bitter (Courtecuisse), peppery, "but varying from quickly to tardily, and in strength", (Petersen)

Microscopic spores:
spores 4.5-6.5 x 3.5-5 microns, short-elliptic, with amyloid spines, (Phillips); spores (4.5)5.0-6.5 x 3.5-4.5 microns, short-elliptic, minutely echinulate [spiny], amyloid, yellowish to colorless in KOH, thin-walled; basidia 4-spored, 16-25 x 4-6 microns, narrowly clavate, colorless, thin-walled, colorless in KOH or Melzer''s reagent; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia infrequent to scattered, protruding about 1/3-1/2, 28-60 x (2)6-8 microns, fusiform, thin-walled, colorless in KOH or Melzer''s reagent; cap cuticle of decumbent thin-walled to slightly thick-walled hyphae 2.5-7.5 microns wide, dingy yellowish to nearly colorless at the surface in KOH or Melzer''s reagent, (Miller(10)), spores 4.5-5.6 x 3.3-4.4 microns, broadly elliptic, finely punctate, iodine positive, with droplets; basidia 4-spored, 15-25 x 5-6 microns, cylindric-clavate, with basal clamp connection; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia 21-40 x 3.5-6 microns, fusiform to subulate, with colorless vesicular contents; clamp connections mentioned for basidia and cap cuticle, (Breitenbach), spores 4.0-5.2(6.0) x 3.0-3.6(4.1) microns, elliptic, slightly flattened adaxially, "ornamentation moderately amyloid, gritty to delicately asperulose, sometimes asperulae appearing longitudinally arranged, barely visible at 1500 X", wall thin and weakly amyloid, with one droplet; basidia 4-spored, 18-26 x 5-6.5 microns, "clavate, often subconstricted medially (and then sphaeropedunculate)", colorless, "clamped, occasionally weakly amyloid"; hymenium containing two other elements: 1) pleurocystidia 22-31 x 3-8 microns, emergent up to 30 microns, arising from subhymenium, "bluntly fusiform to beaked fusiform, to hardly inflated (and then resembling leptocystidia)", colorless, thin-walled, "contents homogeneous, not obviously gloeoplerous", and 2) gloeocystidia rare to occasional, 5.2-7.0 microns wide, arising from lateral stratum, clavate, yellow-refringent, contents coarsely coscinoidal [foamy]; cap cuticle "a repent, coherent layer of generative hyphae involved in minimal mucus", hyphae 4.0-7.5 microns wide, parallel, colorless, thin-walled to thick-walled (up to 0.4 microns thick), ocher-brown in mass, (Petersen)

Spore deposit:
buff (Phillips, Miller(10)), white (Petersen)

Notes:
Material was examined from BC, WA, ID, AK, CO, DC, KY, MD, ME, MI, MT, NM, NY, OH, PA, TN, UT, VA, WY, Sweden, and Portugal, (Miller(10)), Collections were examined from BC, WA, OR, ID, NB, NS, ON, AK, AZ, CO, MI, MT, NM, NY, OH, PA, TN, VA, WY, Greenland, Mexico, Austria, Cyprus, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Russia, Sweden, and Switzerland, (Petersen(25)).

EDIBILITY

unknown (Phillips)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Lentinellus omphalodes (Fr.) P. Karst.