Summary:
Section Typicae (Smith), Section Fragilipedes (Maas Geesteranus). Features include 1) a lubricous to viscid, striate cap that is pale fuscous gray or watery gray or pale bluish gray on disc, whitish on the rest of cap, 2) close, broad, white gills that may stain incarnate, 3) a lubricous to somewhat viscid stem that is bluish gray toward top at first and whitish in lower part, 4) growth in tufts on conifer wood, 5) a whitish spore deposit, and 6) microscopic characters. Maas Geesteranus says Smith found cap colors not found in European material and might not be describing the same species. The description here is adapted from Smith(1) except where noted.

Cap:
1-2(4.5)cm across, conic to convex or with a low umbo or papilla, rarely slightly depressed, margin appressed to stem when young; on disc pale fuscous gray or watery gray or pale bluish gray, whitish toward margin, soon fading to whitish overall then tending to become cream-colored or stained tawny when old; lubricous to subviscid or viscid when old or when wet, bald, becoming striate to near disc, (Smith), "hygrophanous, pure white to whitish, gradually discolouring cream to ochraceous and/or becoming stained with yellow-brown or rusty brown spots", (Maas Geesteranus)

Flesh:
thin, flaccid, cartilaginous; white

Gills:
broadly adnate-subdecurrent, close, 22-25 reaching stem, broad (0.3-0.4cm); white or occasionally flushed pale incarnate; edges even

Stem:
2-5(10)cm x 0.1-0.2cm, equal, cartilaginous and brittle, base somewhat rooting; bluish gray toward top when young and whitish below, soon fading watery grayish white overall; lubricous to somewhat viscid, bald except for white-hairy base

Odor:
not distinctive

Taste:
not distinctive

Microscopic spores:
spores 6-8 x 3-4 microns, broadly elliptic, strongly amyloid, [presumably smooth]; basidia 4-spored, 23-25 x 5-6 microns; pleurocystidia absent, "cheilocystidia abundant, short and clavate or becoming subfusoid to cylindric, sometimes greatly elongated into a narrow lanceolate apex, tips occasionally forked and occasionally one or two short protuberances may develop either on the inflated portion or on the neck", 30-40 x 9-12 microns (clavate type) or 35-55 x 5-8 microns (elongate type), both seen on gills of a single cap; "gill trama faintly vinaceous brown in iodine"; cap trama "with a thin gelatinous surface pellicle, a well-differentiated hypoderm made up of hyphae having walls that sometimes gelatinize slightly, the remaining tissue filamentous, vinaceous brown in iodine"

Spore deposit:
whitish (Breitenbach)

Notes:
Smith gives the distribution as WA, OR, ON, CA, CO, MI, NY, and TN, and Gamiet(1) reported it from BC. There are collections from BC at the University of British Columbia. Maas Geesteranus notes it for Europe, "presumably, the United States", and Japan.

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