Summary:
Features include an overall rubbery-pliant consistency, a central to lateral stem, a cap that is pinkish to tan or with a wine-colored tinge, decurrent close gills that are white to wine-colored, a central to off-center stem, an acid then peppery taste, growth on logs, and smooth, inamyloid, oblong to elliptic spores.

Cap:
3-8cm across, thin convex to nearly flat, vinaceous tinge when fresh and moist, (Mochizuki), pinkish-tan to tan (Arora), pinkish buff to dull tan; surface becoming bald, (Martin), 3-8cm across, convex, the margin at first incurved, becoming broadly convex to flat and when old often elevated, wavy and irregularly lobed; "whitish from the conspicuous sheen but soon becoming sordid pale incarnate-alutaceous, when mature the colors varying from pale buff to dull tan with scarcely any pinkish cast visible"; "dry and at first hoary from a thin cottony covering", soon appearing bald and unpolished, (Bier), when mature pale tan to pinkish tan or vinaceous-tinged (Trudell)

Flesh:
rubbery-pliant (Mochizuki), tough, cartilaginous, dull pinkish to sordid pinkish buff; in stem pinkish, (Bier)

Gills:
decurrent, alternating gills; white to vinaceous; toothed at full maturity, (Mochizuki), finely serrate (Martin), "bluntly adnate but decurrent by long ridges" that extend down the stem for 1-2cm, crowded, narrow to moderately broad, equal; whitish to pale pinkish buff; edges finely serrate, (Bier), broadly attached to decurrent, "close to crowded, partial gills numerous", edges very finely serrate when young, "becoming more ragged in age", whitish to pale pinkish white at first, "darkening slightly, pale creamy buff to pale pinkish buff in age", (Siegel)

Stem:
3-6cm x 0.5-1.2cm, central to eccentric, (Mochizuki), central to lateral (Martin), 3-6cm x 0.5-1.2cm, equal, solid, central or eccentric [off-center], at times nearly lateral; colored as cap; with the same canescent covering as cap at first, base white-felty mycelioid, (Bier), central to off-center, rarely lateral (Siegel)

Veil:
absent (Martin)

Odor:
merely fungoid, (Bier)

Taste:
peppery, (Mochizuki), merely fungoid, (Bier), slightly peppery at times (Trudell), slightly peppery (Siegel)

Microscopic spores:
spores 5-6 x 2-2.5 microns, oblong to elliptic, inamyloid, smooth, (Mochizuki), spores cylindric to slightly curved; pleurocystidia abundant, 60-100 x 7-12 microns, cylindric to ventricose, (Martin), spores 5-6 x 2 microns, subcylindric to slightly curved, smooth, inamyloid, colorless; basidia 4-spored, 30-34 x 5-6 microns, pale reddish in iodine; pleurocystidia very abundant, 60-100 x 7-12 microns, colorless, "subcylindric to somewhat ventricose, often quite ventricose before elongating", cheilocystidia very abundant, 60-125 x 5-9 microns, "the apex usually enlarged slightly and the central portion equal"; cap trama homogeneous beneath a turf or more or less upright slender filaments 4-5 microns wide, these almost forming a palisade, (Bier)

Spore deposit:
white (Siegel)

Notes:
It has been reported from at least BC, WA, OR, CA, AK, and Japan, (Redhead(6)).

EDIBILITY

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Lentinus kauffmanii A.H. Sm. in Bier & Nobles: Can.