Summary:
Features include 1) a blackish brown to dark brown young cap, with a hoary sheen and a thick cartilaginous cap cuticle, 2) firm-cartilaginous flesh (which gives a snapping sound when broken), 3) whitish to gray-whitish gills that may have yellowing edges, 4) a white to brownish stem with a floury apex, 5) growth in tufts, and 6) round spores.

Cap:
3-12cm across, hemispheric becoming flat, sometimes slightly umbonate or somewhat indented, pliant, cartilaginous; hygrophanous, dark olive-brown to chestnut-brown; "often +/- veined, tuberculate to wrinkled, satiny", (Breitenbach), up to 13cm across, "changing from very dark, blackish brown with a hoary sheen to chestnut", "finally to pale tan when overmature and full of insects", (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), 5-10cm across, dark gray brown to olive brown, cap cuticle "thick, somewhat veined and ribbed", (Hansen), 5-10cm across, "chestnut-sepia-brown, olive-umber", "as if armored with thick cartilaginous skin, tuberculate-wrinkled", (Moser), initially blackish, then the cuticle breaking up into tiny granules as the surface expands, revealing the white background and giving the surface a spotted or speckled look, (Lincoff)

Flesh:
thick in center, thin toward margin, elastic, tough (especially cuticle) - when broken the cap gives a distinct snapping sound; whitish, brownish under cap surface, (Breitenbach), solid; white, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), tough to cartilaginous, (Hansen), firm-cartilaginous, (Moser)

Gills:
"broadly adnate to somewhat notched and sometimes subdecurrent as a tooth", 56-65 gills reaching stem, broad, 3-7(11) subgills between each pair of gills; whitish to gray-whitish; edges smooth, (Breitenbach), adnate, close, later relatively distant, some interconnecting veins; whitish, edges yellowing; edges eroded, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), tough; white-pale, (Moser)

Stem:
3.5-9cm x 0.7-1.5cm, cylindric, "corticate, elastic, solid"; cream to pale brownish, gray-brown when old; almost smooth, longitudinally fibrillose, white-powdered at top, (Breitenbach), up to 8cm long and up to 4cm wide, strongly cespitose [in tufts], "often fused and not only at the base, irregularly shaped"; white, a bit brownish, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), 5-10cm x 1-1.5cm, pale brownish; apex floury, (Moser)

Veil:
[none]

Odor:
herbaceous (Breitenbach), slight (Schalkwijk-Barendsen)

Taste:
mild, not distinctive, at times somewhat peppery, (Breitenbach), with somewhat burning aftertaste (Hansen), somewhat burnt (Moser)

Microscopic spores:
spores 5-6 x 4.5-5.3 microns, nearly round, smooth, iodine negative; basidia 4-spored, 28-32 x 7-8 microns, narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection, with siderophilic granules; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia not seen; cap cuticle "of +/- parallel and densely intertwined hyphae" 2-4 microns across, "uppermost layer slightly gelatinized, brown-pigmented", septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach), spores 6-7 x 6-7 microns, round, (Moser)

Spore deposit:
white (Breitenbach)

Notes:
It was reported from BC by Schalkwijk-Barendsen who says it is found in the west from YT to CA. It was recorded from WA by Andrew Parker, pers. comm.

EDIBILITY

with caution (Schalkwijk-Barendsen)