Summary:
Features include a moist, pale buff cap, notched, crowded, narrow gills that are white to pale grayish yellowish-pink, a stem that is pallid to grayish white with a purple tinge, a colored spore deposit, and microscopic characters.

Cap:
8-14cm across, obtuse, becoming convex to flat, margin incurved at first, lobed or splitting when old; pale buff ("pale pinkish buff"), paler when old; moist, margin very finely pruinose to tomentose at first, becoming bald, (Bigelow), 5-15cm across, pale grayish alutaceous to pale beige, (Hansen), "ocher-gray to gray-beige when young, light brown to gray-brown when old", (Breitenbach)

Flesh:
white or with a faint vinaceous buff tinge; in stem very pale grayish vinaceous (Bigelow), white (Hansen, Breitenbach)

Gills:
sinuate, crowded, narrow (0.6-0.7cm broad), white to "pale grayish vinaceous" not darkening when old, (Bigelow), whitish becoming pink, (Hansen), off-white with vinaceous tinges (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), notched, crowded, narrow, very thin, in 3-4 tiers, equal; white to a pale grayish yellowish-pink, not darkening when old, (Butler), whitish to light beige (Breitenbach)

Stem:
5-10cm x 1-2cm at top, equal or base slightly club-shaped, solid; pallid to grayish-white with purple tinge; bald and smooth or floccose scabrous in upper part, rather appressed-fibrillose or cottony lower down, "often uneven and longitudinally striate", (Bigelow), 4-7cm x 1.5-3cm, +/- bulbose at base; blue to violet; fibrillose, (Hansen), "with violet-blue longitudinal fibrils on a whitish background, apex somewhat lilac-blue", (Breitenbach)

Odor:
none (Bigelow), pleasant (Hansen), pleasant, aromatic, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen)

Taste:
mild (Bigelow), pleasant (Hansen), pleasantly nutty (Breitenbach)

Microscopic spores:
spores 4.5-7 x 3-4 microns, elliptic, verruculose [finely warty], inamyloid, ornamentation cyanophilic; basidia 4-spored, 17.5-25.5 x 5.5-7 microns; [pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia presumably absent]; clamp connections present, (Bigelow), 6-9 x 4-6 microns, (Hansen), spores 4.5-7 x 3-4 microns, small warts, inamyloid, (Butler), spores 6-8.1 x 4.1-5.2 microns, elliptic, finely punctate to finely verruculose, colorless, (Breitenbach)

Spore deposit:
"pale vinaceous fawn" or paler, (Bigelow), rosy peach color (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), grayish or brownish pink or paler, (Butler), cream-yellow with an orange tint (Breitenbach)

Notes:
Material was examined from OR, CA, CO, MI, and NY, (Bigelow(5)). Collections from BC are deposited at the Pacific Forestry Centre. There are collections at the University of Washington from WA, ID, NY, and (as Tricholoma personatum) from NC. It also occurs in Europe.

EDIBILITY

yes (Butler), yes (Courtecuisse, Breitenbach, both for L. personata in Europe)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Clitocybe saeva (Fr.) H.E. Bigelow & A.H. Sm.
Lepista personata (Fr.: Fr.) Cooke
Tricholoma personatum (Fr.) P. Kumm.