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

Summary:
Distinguishing features are the blue gray to blue color of cap, pores, and stem. Neoalbatrellus subcaeruleoporus was differentiated in 2016 from Neoalbatrellus caeruleoporus which occurs in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada (including Quebec and Nova Scotia). N. caeruleoporus has a deeper blue color and larger spores (see SIMILAR for details) and is differentiated by molecular evidence.

Neoalbatrellus subcaeruleoporus is found in BC, WA, OR, and CA, (Ginns(1)).

Cap:
1.5-3.3cm, flat; when fresh with blue tints, when dry bluish black with the outer third bluish gray, blackish gray with a slight blue tint, avellaneous, dark brown to blackish brown, black; bald, dull, blue color of fresh fruiting bodies fades on drying and specimens often become salmon to orange-red in herbarium, (Ginns(1)), 3-6.5cm across, umbonate to convex, irregularly flat or more often depressed, "orbicular, flabelliform, dimidiate, or reniform"; a "pale glaucous blue" at first, later "cadet gray" to "light mineral gray" with margin often paling to "pale smoke gray" to "light olive gray", "when drying reddish undertones developing with ochraceous-orange or orangish areas showing in pileal cracks or where damaged"; margin of cap "uniform, convoluted or irregular and inrolled, with lobes or undulations and splits (clefts)", "when mature prominently incurved or slightly involute and somewhat even", colored as cap to generally much paler than cap, "with orangish or ochraceous tints" when old, surface bald and soft "or breaking up into minute scales that are darker than the underlying tissue and slightly roughened, with an appendiculate, sterile edge", (Audet)

Flesh:
0.05-0.1cm, hard, brittle; white, pallid or pale orange; core of stem white, (Ginns(1)), <= 1cm thick, white at first, slowly "pale ochraceous buff" along cap margin, then "light pinkish cinnamon" or "light vinaceous cinnamon"; in stem solid, "pallid when freshly cut, turning pale pinkish very slowly", (Audet)

Pores:
1(2-4) per mm angular, slightly decurrent, walls thin, the edges entire to fimbriate [fringed] or granulose; bluish gray, gray, dark gray, white, pallid, "vinaceous buff", pale orange; tube layer 0.07-0.1cm thick, (Ginns(1)), pores 1-3 per mm, "orbicular, elongate to slightly angular", near the stem uniform, <=1 mm wide, smaller at the growing margin; near the stem colored as or paler than the cap, at the growing margin "uniformly pale bluish and with pale ochraceous or pale orangish to rusty areas at maturity or when injured/bruised"; pores pruinose inside, with orange-pinkish necropigments; tubes decurrent, shallow, 0.1-0.2cm deep, dissepiment walls paler, "fimbriate or granulose", (Audet)

Stem:
1.5-3.5cm x 0.2-0.5cm, cylindric; when dry bluish gray, brown to dark brown; bald, shiny, (Ginns(1)), 3-6cm x 1-2cm, "generally sub-cylindric or slightly flattened, fasciculate", "central to strongly eccentric", narrowing downwards and widening toward the cap, "somewhat irregular to slightly twisted, curved or bent"; colored as the cap, "paler and often with very slight pale pinkish overcast tones, or becoming slightly darker or grayer toward the extreme base or below, but paler and almost whitish near the base", when old "with orangish or ochraceous tints"; "smooth to innately fibrillose streaked or with very fine scaly patches", (Audet)

Odor:
"sweetly fungoid or not distinctive" (Audet)

Taste:
"mild and slightly sweetish to slightly peppery" (Audet)

Microscopic:
spores 4.0-4.8(5.0) x 3.4-3.6(4.0) microns, broadly elliptic to nearly round, smooth, inamyloid, thin-walled, colorless, typically with one large droplet, with a relatively long tapered apiculus; basidia 4-spored, 23-32(44) x 5.6-7.4, slenderly clavate to nearly cylindric; hyphae monomitic, 3-9 microns wide, sometimes inflated to 20 microns wide, simple-septate, walls colorless, thin, inamyloid, hyphae of pileipellis 4-5 microns wide, repent or a loose palisade, many with oily contents, terminal cells mostly 30-40 microns long, cylindric to clavate (up to 5.5 microns wide) or sometimes irregularly shaped cells about 15 x 5 microns, sometimes with yellow-brown contents, gloeoplerous hyphae scattered in context, up to 7 microns wide, with refractive, almost colorless to pale yellow contents, hyphae of trama parallel, 2.4-5.2 microns wide, "sometimes with resinous deposits interspersed between hyphae and some gloeoplerous hyphae 3-6 microns in diameter", (Ginns(1)), spores (3.3)3.6-4.7(5.1) x (2.8)2.9-3.7(3.9) microns, amygdaliform [almond-shaped], elliptic to nearly round, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, thin-walled, "with a relatively long apiculus"; basidia 4-spored, 25-33 x 6-7 microns, narrowly clavate; hyphal system monomitic, gloeoplerous hyphae in context and trama, (Audet)