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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) a moist cap that is pale watery buff with a faint purple tint, 2) crowded, narrow gills that are brownish gray with a faint purplish or pinkish tinge, 3) a stem that is off-white or near the color of the gills, 4) a pinkish gray to brownish pink spore deposit, and 5) elliptic, minutely rough spores.
Material was examined from WA, MA, and MI, (Bigelow(5)). Collections from BC and AB are deposited at the University of British Columbia. It also occurs in Europe.
Cap: 5-10(15)cm across, conic to hemispheric becoming convex to flat and wavy, margin incurved for a long time, later sharp; "pale violet, whitish with gray-blue to ocherish tints"; smooth, dull, (Breitenbach), 6-15cm, obtuse then broadly convex, becoming flat, margin inrolled at first, disc with umbo at times or shallowly depressed when old; 'pale watery buff with faint purple tint ("pale pinkish buff," "tilleul buff" or "pale brownish drab"), disc becoming brownish vinaceous ("vinaceous fawn") in age'; moist, bald, edges of margin pruinose tomentose, split when old, (Bigelow), 6-15cm, "at first obtuse, then broadly convex with inrolled edge", becoming flat or retaining obtuse umbo, edge split when old; "pale watery buff with faint purple tint", center darkening slightly to a grayed yellowish pink when old, (Butler)
Flesh: thick, soft; whitish, (Breitenbach), thick, firm but brittle; white or with faint vinaceous tinge, in stem grayish vinaceous or colored as gills, (Bigelow), thick, firm but brittle; white or with faint pinkish tinge, (Butler)
Gills: notched, 98-120 reaching stem, 5-7(11) subgills between each pair of gills, gills narrow; whitish becoming pale pink-lilac to pink-ocherish; edges smooth, (Breitenbach), "adnate or adnexed to sinuate, crowded, narrow", up to 0.7cm broad; ''faintly purplish-tinged ("pale mouse gray," "pallid mouse drab") at times more vinaceous ("pale grayish vinaceous") in age'', (Bigelow), adnate or notched, crowded, thin, narrow (up to 0.7cm), equal; "gray with faint purplish or pinkish tinge", (Butler)
Stem: 5.0-8.0 x 1-2(2.5)cm, cylindric, base sometimes widened and bent, solid, pithy-fibrous; "white longitudinally fibrillose to grooved with a pale pink-violet or ocherish translucent background", (Breitenbach), 5-9cm x 1-2.5cm at top, equal or base widened to club-shaped, solid; pallid or nearly colored as gills; fibrillose, "apex floccose scabrous to furfuraceous above", becoming appressed in lower part (then often longitudinally striate), "base with pallid mycelium or tomentum", (Bigelow), 5-9cm x 1-2.5cm at top, equal or base widened to club-shaped, solid; off-white or near color of gills; base with off-white mycelium or wool, (Butler)
Veil: [none]
Odor: "rather unpleasantly herbaceous with a farinaceous component" (Breitenbach), fragrant or none (Bigelow, Butler)
Microscopic spores: spores 5.8-8.4 x 3.5-4.7 microns, elliptic, almost smooth to finely verrucose [warty]; basidia 4-spored, 23-29 x 6-7.5 microns, clavate, with basal clamp connection; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia not seen; cap cuticle of +/- irregular hyphae 2-4 microns wide, "occasional hyphae ascending and with exserted ends", septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach), spores 5.5-7.5 x 3-4.5 microns, elliptic, verruculose [finely warty], inamyloid, ornamentation cyanophilic; basidia 4-spored, 19-38 x 5.5-7.5 microns; clamp connections present, (Bigelow)
Spore deposit: beige-pink (Breitenbach), vinaceous buff or "pale vinaceous fawn", (Bigelow), "pinkish gray to brownish pink" (Butler)
Habitat / Range
usually gregarious, in fairy rings or rows, in hardwood and coniferous forests, "also along forest edges, on leaf and needle litter or among grass"; late summer to fall, (Breitenbach), usually gregarious to somewhat cespitose [in tufts]; in a cedar swamp, and on a trash heap, (Bigelow), or along roads where organic material is present in the fill, (Butler)
Similar Species
Lepista nuda is microscopically the same and overmature or faded specimens may be impossible to separate, but Lepista glaucocana never has the deep violet tones of L. nuda, (Bigelow(5)). Lepista saeva lacks any violet or purplish in the cap and does not have a fragrant odor, (Bigelow(5)). Lepista irina can be confused with very pale forms of L. glaucocana but it has longer spores than L. glaucocana, (Bigelow(5)).
