Summary:
Section Nolanea. Nolanea hirtipes is recognized easily by a yellow brown cap, a long stem that bruises brown, abundant basal mycelium and a rancid-farinaceous odor. Microscopically it has large spores, strangulated subcapitate cheilocystidia, and coarsely incrusted pigmentation: the combination of stem, odor, spores and cheilocystidia is unique. The description is derived from Largent(1) except where otherwise stated. Largent notes that the concept of Nolanea hirtipes in Europe presented by Noordeloos has some different features: a dark sepia brown cap that is obscurely translucent-striate at the margin, absent bruising reaction in the stem, and minutely incrusted hyphae in the cap trama and cap cuticle. It is very common in the western United States (Largent(1)).

Cap:
3.5-6.5cm across, broadly convex with acute umbo, margin incurved then decurved [downcurved] and may become plane to uplifted, margin often extending past gills 0.1cm; hygrophanous, dark yellow brown, at times slightly darker on disc but darker color never over the whole cap; shiny, dull, bald, translucent-striate to disc when moist and opaque when faded, (Largent), reddish brown, olivaceous or sepia, gray brown when dry, (Courtecuisse)

Flesh:
up to 0.2cm thick near gill attachment; grayish above stem, colored as cap surface elsewhere

Gills:
"finely adnexed, close to subdistant, moderately broad", 0.5-0.8cm broad; light grayish brown, [presumably becoming pinkish], edges colored as faces and smooth

Stem:
8-13cm x 0.35-0.6cm at top, widening downward (0.6-0.9cm at base), round in cross-section, hollow, very fragile, breaking and splitting easily on handling; at first silvery brown, soon darkening when old when bruised to dark gray brown; bald, somewhat silky or satiny, longitudinally striate due to hygrophanous streaks, basal tomentum grayish white and abundant to moderate

Veil:
[absent]

Odor:
rancid farinaceous (Largent), cod liver oil, (Courtecuisse)

Taste:
rancid farinaceous

Microscopic spores:
spores 8.8-14.0 x (5.9)6.4-9.9(10.4) microns, 5-6 sided, distinctly angular, [smooth, inamyloid], average spore length in a given collection 10.1-11.6 microns, average spore width in a given collection (7.2)7.4-8.5 microns; basidia 4-spored, 29.5-58.2 x 9-13.7 microns; pleurocystidia absent; cheilocystidia "typically abundant and in many sections forming a sterile layer", typically cylindroclavate, strangulated, and subcapitate, 17.6-58.1 x 6.7-11.8 microns; pigmentation intracellular in outer suprapellis of cap "with cells often colorless in sections of this area", coarsely and heavily externally incrusted, particularly evident in slender hyphae of subpellis in cap and into cap trama, "often evident on broader hyphae in these same areas"; clamp connections present but difficult to see at base of basidia, absent elsewhere

Spore deposit:
pink (Buczacki)

Notes:
Collections were examined from BC, WA, OR, ID, CA, and CO, (Largent). It is also found in Europe.

EDIBILITY

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Entoloma hirtipes (Schumach.) M.M. Moser