Summary:
Features include 1) a cap with a pinkish brown to reddish, smooth center, and similarly colored radial fibrils or scales on a white background, 2) free white gills, 3) a slender, smooth, white stem with a thin, fragile but persistent ring, the upper part of which flares up and the lower part of which hangs down, and 4) a white spore deposit. The western North American taxon or taxa may not be the same species as Leucoagaricus rubrotinctus. One candidate is Lepiota rubrotinctoides Murrill described from Washington with supporting collections from Oregon and California. Trudell(4) use the name Leucoagaricus rubrotinctoides, but the combination in Leucoagaricus has not yet been made. Smith, H.V.(1) says that the slightly larger L. rubrotinctoides appears to be identical with L. rubrotinctus. Murrill(3) says that L. rubrotinctoides differs from L. rubrotinctus in its larger size, darker umbo, smaller spores (7 x 3.5 microns), and the absence of scales on the cap surface. The Daniel Winkler photograph here fits the description and the cap was according to Winkler at least 10cm if not 12cm across. By whatever name(s), the red-eyed parasol is generally common in the Pacific Northwest.

Cap:
3-8cm across, oval or rounded becoming convex, then flat or with uplifted margin or broadly umbonate, margin often splitting when old; at first uniformly pinkish brown or reddish, "then breaking up into flat, radially arranged fibrils or scales" which vary in color from cinnamon-buff to coral pink, reddish, or pinkish orange, background whitish and the center remaining smooth and usually darker (deep red to chestnut); dry, (Arora), (2)3-6cm across, buttons ovoid (at times slightly flattened on top) expanding to broadly convex, nearly flat or with low obtuse umbo; bright reddish-pink ("light coral red") to purplish around disc, paler toward margin ("salmon color" to "salmon buff" toward margin); cuticle at first continuous over cap, but cracking near margin and breaking up into fine colored scales toward the disc, the disc usually staying smooth or nearly so, (Smith, H.V.(1)), 3-8cm across, cylindric then conic becoming convex, flat and finally uplifted, disc flat or raised, margin incurved becoming flat and splitting radially at edge; disc reddish pink to brown (Pacific Northwest collections often lack rosy tints), towards margin colored like disc but tearing radially to expose white flesh; moist, silky, (Sieger)

Flesh:
thin; white, not bruising, (Arora), thin; white, unchanging, (Smith, H.V.(1))

Gills:
free, close; white, not bruising, (Arora), "close, narrow to moderately broad"; "white, unchanging"; edges slightly flocculose, (Smith, H.V.(1)), free, attached to a collar, close, in 1 or 2 tiers, often forking, may have cross-walls; white; edges finely fringed, (Sieger)

Stem:
4-16cm x 0.4-1cm, equal or wider in lower part, usually rather slender, "often extending fairly deep into the humus", becoming hollow; white, discoloring somewhat when old; smooth, (Arora), 4-9cm x 0.3-0.8cm, equal in upper part, narrowly club-shaped at base, stuffed becoming hollow; white; bald or slightly silky-fibrillose, ring median to superior, (Smith, H.V.(1)), 4-17cm x 0.4-1cm, enlarged toward base, stuffed becoming hollow; white, bruising yellowish to brown, (Sieger)

Veil:
"membranous, white, forming a thin, fragile but persistent ring" on stem, the ring median to superior, "typically sleevelike above and flaring below", (Arora), ring "median to superior, well developed, persistent, flaring or ascending and often tinged with rose along the lacerated margin", (Smith, H.V.(1)), thin ring, movable, "flaring up and hanging down", (Sieger)

Odor:
not distinctive (Smith, H.V.(1), Sieger)

Taste:
not distinctive (Smith, H.V.(1), Sieger)

Microscopic spores:
spores 6-10 x 4-6 microns, elliptic, smooth, (Arora), 7-10 x 4.5-5.5 microns, oval-pointed in face view, slightly inequilateral in side view, dark rusty brown in Melzer''s reagent, thick-walled, with prominent apiculus; basidia 4-spored, 18-22 x 6-7 microns; pleurocystidia none, cheilocystidia abundant, filiform and 30-40 x 3-5 microns, often flexuous [wavy] and contorted, some clavate to subcapitate 32-38 x 5-7 microns, also flexuous, some fusoid-ventricose and 22-34 x 5-8 microns, very few reaching 10 microns broad; cap cuticle of radially arranged fibrils 4-6 microns wide with an unstable pigment; clamp connections none, (Smith, H.V.(1)), 6.3-9.5(10) x 3.9-4.7(5.5) microns, elliptic in face view, tapered at apex, side profile asymmetric, prominently apiculate, without germ pore, thick-walled, pale to dark reddish-brown in Melzer''s reagent; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia abundant, long clavate; cap cuticle "a trichodermium of packed upright hyphae and pileocystidia on tightly interwoven hyphae, radially arranged", (Sieger)

Spore deposit:
white (Arora, Sieger)

Notes:
There are collections from BC at University of British Columbia (as Lepiota rubrotincta), collections from OR and one from ID at Oregon State University, and collections from WA at the University of Washington. Arora(1) reports it for CA.

EDIBILITY

unknown, similar Lepiotas poisonous, (Arora)