Summary:
Features include 1) a dark grayish brown cap covered with pointed scales that become powdery with age, 2) flesh that reddens when cut, 3) close, free to adnexed, reddish gills that become brownish gray when old, 4) a reddish or brown scurfy stem, 5) a greenish to reddish brown spore deposit, and 6) elliptic to cylindric, finely punctulate spores. Melanophyllum haematospermum has been placed in Agaricus, Chlorosperma, Cystoderma, Inocybe, Lepiota, Naucoria, Pratella, Psalliota, Psathyra, Pilosace, and Stropharia, (Sieger). DNA indicates that it nests within Cystolepiota and various concepts worldwide for the species differ by more than 3%, meaning that a number of species are likely, (D. Miller, pers. comm.).

Cap:
1.5-3.5cm across, conic to flat; dark grayish brown; covered with pointed scales that become powdery when old, marginal remnants may be hanging from edge, (Sieger), 2-5cm across, conic becoming convex, flat when old, "margin incurved to inrolled for a long time"; dingy gray-beige to light brown; "densely covered with small pyramidal warts when young, later granulose-farinose, dull", margin hung with membranous veil remnants, (Breitenbach), 1.2-5cm across, conic to convex, becoming nearly flat when old; "dry, coated with short, erect, brown scales over a grayish brown to yellowish ground color", "scales fragile, soon powdery and easily removed", (Bessette)

Flesh:
thin; "white, immediately reddening when cut, later fading", (Breitenbach), whitish (Bessette)

Gills:
free or slightly attached, close; bright brick red, becoming brownish gray when old, (Sieger), finely adnexed, 42-53 reaching stem, 5-7 subgills between each pair of gills, gills broad; "bright carmine-red when young, later brown-red"; edges smooth, (Breitenbach), free, close; bright to dark red, becoming brown when mature, (Bessette)

Stem:
3-7cm x 0.1-0.3cm at top, widening to bulb at base, hollow; reddish or brown; covered with deciduous powder, (Sieger), 3-4.5cm x 0.3-0.5cm, cylindric, "base usually somewhat enlarged to bulbous", stem hollow, fragile; "densely covered with dingy gray-beige powdery material on a wine-red background, with an annular zone on the upper third, wine-red above it", (Breitenbach), 2-9cm x 0.15-0.45cm, nearly equal down to a bulbous base; pinkish brown, darkening when old; scurfy to nearly smooth, (Bessette)

Veil:
partial veil leaving remnant hanging from cap margin, ring absent, (Sieger), "partial veil membranous, grayish, leaving veil remnants or a sparse superior ring", (Bessette)

Odor:
pungent, of cucumber, (Sieger), polyporoid (Breitenbach), not distinctive (Bessette)

Taste:
mild, fungoid, (Breitenbach), not distinctive (Bessette)

Microscopic spores:
spores 5-7 x 2.5-3 microns, elliptic to cylindric, with obscure spines (focus on upper surface), colorless to brown, inamyloid; pleurocystidia absent, cap and stem epithelium of brown sphaerocysts, (Sieger), spores 6-7.1 x 2.8-3.7 microns, "cylindric-elliptic, finely rough", light lemon yellow, thick-walled; basidia 4-spored, 16-21 x 6-7.5 microns, cylindric-clavate-ventricose, without basal clamp connection; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia not seen; cap cuticle "of pyriform, vesicular, to subglobose cells" 15-45 x 10-25 microns, deeper hyphae periclinal, 2.5-5 microns wide, some septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach), spores 5-7 x 2-3 microns, elliptic, finely punctate to nearly smooth, colorless, (Bessette)

Spore deposit:
"olive green soon drying reddish brown", (Sieger), "olive green when fresh, red-brown when dry", (Breitenbach), dull red when fresh, drying purplish brown, (Bessette)

Notes:
Breitenbach(4) give the distribution as North America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa. There are collections from BC and WA deposited at University of British Columbia, and collections from WA at the University of Washington.

EDIBILITY

unknown (Bessette)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Lepiota haematosperma (Bull.: Fr.) Quel.