E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
Features include 1) a hygrophanous, non-viscid cap that is flesh-colored to brownish or grayish with a faint lilac or vinaceous tinge when moist, fading as it dries, 2) close gills that are grayish to brownish buff or pinkish buff, often with a lilac tint when fresh, 3) a fibrillose stem that is colored like the cap or paler, 4) a dingy pale pinkish spore deposit, and 5) finely roughened to smooth inamyloid spores. Var. tarda (Bigelow''s description here) has a stem colored as the cap, a mild taste, no odor, (some variants have violaceous colors throughout). Var. alcalina, cited by Bigelow from TN, has an alkaline odor and smaller spores 4.5-6(7) x 3-4 microns.

Var. tarda collections were examined by Bigelow for WA, OR, ID, ON, QC, AK, AZ, CA, MA, MI, MN, NY, RI, TN, TX, VA, and the Netherlands. Breitenbach(3) gave the distribution of Lepista sordida as North America, Europe, Asia, North Africa, and Australia. There are collections from BC deposited at the University of British Columbia.

Cap:
1-4(11.5)cm across, obtuse becoming convex to flat, margin slightly decurved [downcurved] at first, "remaining narrowly inrolled and incurved for some time", finally uplifted and spreading, often broadly wavy, sometimes lobed; hygrophanous, when moist various shades of vinaceous brown or violaceous brown, paler when faded, disc sometimes tinged darker, edges browning when old; with a hoary sheen when young, soon becoming innately fibrillose or bald, margin faintly short translucent-striate at times when moist, pruinose pubescent at first but coating becoming appressed, (Bigelow), 1-6(9)cm across, convex with incurved margin, than flat to broadly funnel-shaped or umbonate; "flesh-colored to brownish or grayish with faint lilac or vinaceous tinge when moist, fading as it dries"; smooth, not viscid, (Arora)

Flesh:
thin, firm, brittle; colored as moist cap at first, "soon fading to whitish with a vinaceous or pinkish cast"; in stem "whitish with a vinaceous or lilaceous tint", (Bigelow), thin, (Arora)

Gills:
"adnexed to adnate or sometimes sinuate at first, becoming decurrent, close to subdistant, narrow to moderately broad", 0.2-0.55(1)cm broad, forking at times, not interveined; violaceous, sordid pinkish or vinaceous, finally sordid buff, (Bigelow), "adnate to slightly decurrent or at times notched, close"; "grayish to brownish-buff or pinkish-buff, often with lilac tint when fresh", (Arora)

Stem:
(1)2-6(8)cm x 0.15-0.6(1.2)cm, equal or the apex widened and tapering downward, solid, compressed at times, often curved and flexuous [wavy]; ground color like the moist cap, "at first covered by a thin whitish fibrillose coating", appressed then appearing bald or longitudinally striate, fibrils whitish, "base often with a small tuft of whitish or lilaceous tomentum", (Bigelow), 2-6cm x 0.3-0.8cm, usually slender, equal or slightly wider in lower part; colored more or less like cap or paler; fibrillose, (Arora)

Odor:
absent or merely fungoid, (Bigelow), mild or slightly fragrant (Arora)

Taste:
mild (Bigelow)

Microscopic spores:
spores (4.5)6-8 x 3-5 microns (up to 10 x 5.5 microns from 2-spored basidia), elliptic, verruculose or sometimes smooth, inamyloid, ornamentation cyanophilic; basidia 4-spored or rarely 2-spored, 22-37.5 x 5.5-7.5 microns; [presumably without pleurocystidia or cheilocystidia]; clamp connections present, (Bigelow), spores 6-8 x 3-5 microns, elliptic, finely rough, (Arora)

Spore deposit:
dingy "pinkish buff", "pale pinkish buff", (Bigelow), dingy pale pinkish (Arora)