Summary:
Features include 1) a hygrophanous, smooth to velvety cap that is dark brown to reddish brown to ocher-tawny with a paler margin that is striate when moist, 2) close, broad, adnexed, fringed gills that are white becoming pink, 3) a cap-colored, velvety stem, 4) a strong fishy-cucumber odor, 5) a pinkish to ocher-brown spore deposit, 6) elliptic smooth spores, and 7) large, bulbous-based, acuminate cystidia that occur on all surfaces. DNA evidence appears to indicate that Pacific Northwest material matches European material, (D. Miller, pers. comm.).

Cap:
0.8-2(5)cm across, bell-shaped with small umbo, margin straight; hygrophanous, deep red-brown to ochraceous tawny when wet, either uniformly or with a narrow marginal area that is amber yellow, fading to buff on drying; smooth, appearing bald when wet and innately silky when dry; margin pellucid-striate for 0.2-0.3cm when wet, drying opaque to faintly striate, (Stuntz), reddish brown to dark brown to blackish, the margin often paler, (Arora), moist, smooth to silky, (Lincoff), surface velvety (Courtecuisse), 2-6(8)cm across (Breitenbach)

Flesh:
thin, soft; hygrophanous; red-brown to tawny when wet, drying buff, (Stuntz), brittle in cap, tough in stem, (Hansen)

Gills:
adnexed to narrowly adnate, bluntly rounded at margin, moderately close, ventricose, rather broad; white becoming pink, edges the same color as faces, (Stuntz), almost free; pale ocher, buff to clay pink; edge finely fimbriate [fringed], (Hansen)

Stem:
2-4.5cm x 0.1-0.25cm, equal or narrowing slightly downward, round in cross-section to slightly flattened, hollow, cartilaginous-fibrous, rather brittle, base not bulbous; cinnamon at top, shading downward to dark red-brown, becoming dark red-brown overall, unchanging on exposure or drying; smooth and satiny but appearing dull, under a lens minutely hoary, (Stuntz), 2.5-5cm x 0.2-0.4cm, colored like cap, paler in upper part; dry, velvety, (Hansen), 4-8cm x 0.25-0.5cm (Breitenbach)

Odor:
rather strong of raw fish or fresh cucumber, or both, (Stuntz), putty, cod liver oil, or cucumber, (Courtecuisse)

Taste:
farinaceous (Hansen)

Microscopic spores:
spores 7.5-10 x 4-5 microns, elliptic, smooth, nearly colorless, outer wall cyanophilic; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia large, 60-100 x 12-24 microns, "ventricose-fusoid, thin-walled, with yellowish vacuolar pigment"; caulocystidia and pileocystidia similar; cap cuticle "of repent, radial hyphae with membrane pigment"; clamp connections present, (Hansen), 8-9 x 3-4 microns, elliptic, smooth, colorless to pale pink; cystidia huge, "bulbous below, narrowing above, on all surfaces", (Lincoff), basidia 4-spored 22-30 x 6-8 microns, cylindric, with basal clamp connection; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia 60-95 x 15-22, lanceolate, (Breitenbach), spores 8-9 x 4-5 microns, elliptic, smooth, appearing pale pink to nearly colorless under the microscope; basidia 4-spored, 30-41 x 6-9.5 microns, clavate; pleurocystidia (60)84-100 x (14.5)17-24.5 microns, obclavate with acuminate apex, projecting prominently, colorless; pileocystidia irregularly scattered over cap surface, 54-78 x 12.5-24 microns, elongate-obclavate with acuminate apices; clamp connections abundant [at least in cap cuticle], (Stuntz)

Spore deposit:
ochraceous pink (Hansen), pink (Stuntz), rust-ocher to orange brown (Breitenbach)

Notes:
Stuntz(2) examined collections from WA and OR. It is commonly reported from BC and there are collections from BC at the University of British Columbia. It also occurs in CA (Desjardin). Breitenbach(3) give the distribution as North America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa.

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