E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
Section Viscosae (Smith), Section Hygrocyboideae (Maas Geesteranus). Features include 1) small size, 2) a viscid cap that is yellow with a whitish margin, 3) pallid yellowish gills, 4) a glutinous pale yellow stem, 5) a farinaceous odor and taste, 6) growth on conifer wood, and 7) microscopic details including cheilocystidia that are clavate and covered with short rod-like projections. The description is derived from Smith(1).

Collections of Mycena epipterygia var. lignicola were studied from WA, MT, and MI (Smith). Smith gives the distribution as NS to WA and southward where conifers are found. There are Scott Redhead collections from BC at the University of British Columbia. Breitenbach(3) give the distribution as North America and Europe.

Gills:
adnate by a tooth, subdistant to distant, narrow; white to pale yellow; edges even

Stem:
4-6cm x 0.1-0.15cm, equal; bright yellow fading to pale yellow; viscid, bald, base faintly strigose [hairy]

Odor:
slightly to rather strongly farinaceous, in one specimen a strong iodoform smell after a few hours (cf. var. epipterygia which can have iodoform odor), another had a nitrous odor

Taste:
slightly to rather strongly farinaceous

Microscopic spores:
spores (9)10-12(13) x 5.5-8 microns, broadly elliptic to oval, amyloid, [presumably smooth]; basidia 2-spored, 3-spored, 4-spored; pleurocystidia not differentiated, cheilocystidia abundant, gelatinizing and forming a sterile band on gill edge, clavate and covered with short rod-like projections

Spore deposit:
[presumably white or pale buff]