Summary:
Features include clitocyboid stature, chalky-white color, tough flesh, crowded, fairly narrow, whitish gills, a fungal to farinaceous odor, growth on hardwood (especially in hollow old-growth stumps and logs), a white spore deposit, and microscopic characters including narrow coralloid epicuticular hyphae and a mucilaginous coating on the hyphae of the stem.

Cap:
5-5.9cm across, convex to pulvinate [cushion-shaped] initially, becoming flat to shallowly depressed, "with inrolled to incurved edges, often becoming indented or incised, often inequilaterally expanded"; "often chalky-white, pruinose to farinaceous, or rarely subtomentose, with or without faint rose to pale vinaceous tints on disc"; dry, opaque, (Redhead), 1.5-12(24)cm across, dirty whitish, later somewhat grayish, gray-brownish; with downy-floury covering, (Moser), up to 10cm across, flattened, irregular, margin thin, splitting; white then grayish cream; silky scurfy, (Courtecuisse), grayish when young, later whitish with gray to ocherish tones (Breitenbach)

Flesh:
fleshy and tenacious, with conspicuous membranous layers under pellis and just above spore-bearing surface, occasionally water-soaked, (Redhead), tough (Courtecuisse)

Gills:
"adnate to adnexed or decurrent by short tooth", crowded to subcrowded, up to 3 tiers of subgills, moderately narrow (up to 0.6cm broad); "white but drying yellowish white"; edges even or eroded, (Redhead), adnate, very crowded; white, when old sometimes yellowing, browning, (Moser), adnate to decurrent, narrow; pale, (Courtecuisse)

Stem:
1.5-4(6)cm x 0.15-0.6cm, "variable, often short and strongly curved", usually swollen in lower part, "occasionally fasciculated or apparently formed unevenly", usually eccentric [off-center], often with clustered aborted small caps at base; usually chalky-white, occasionally with faint vinaceous-rose tint; with a surface similar to cap, often slightly more matted-roughened at top, otherwise like suede, white mycelial strands often noted near base, (Redhead), 1-6(18)cm x 0.2-1(6)cm, white, when old browning somewhat, (Moser), eccentric or more or less central, colored as cap, (Courtecuisse)

Odor:
"strongly fungal, fleetingly farinaceous in only the freshest uncut and water-soaked specimens, farinaceous when first cut, then developing a strong fungal odor until dried", (Redhead), strong flour smell (Moser), mealy (Courtecuisse), fruity to slightly farinaceous (Breitenbach)

Taste:
not distinctive to strongly fungal (Redhead), mild, slightly farinaceous (Breitenbach)

Microscopic spores:
spores 4-6 x 3.0-3.5 microns, elliptic to broadly elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, acyanophilic, thin-walled, with small apiculus; basidia 1-spored, 2-spored, 3-spored, 4-spored, small, 17-20 x 3.8-4 microns, narrowly clavate, with clamp connection; pleurocystidia absent, a few irregular cheilocystidia-like elements in some specimens; cap cuticle a densely matted interwoven layer of thin-walled, narrow, colorless hyphae 2-4 microns wide, with the occasional swollen element up to 10 microns wide, "with clamp connections, and often with coralloid apices or the occasional diverticulum"; stem cuticle a matted layer 100-150 microns thick, of uneven, thin-walled hyphae 3-4(10) microns wide, "often with coralloid ends or diverticulae, and in pockets embedded in a watery, mucilage-like substance", over a compact layer about 100 microns thick, of subparallel hyphae 3-12 microns wide, with little interhyphal spacing, appearing thin-walled (less than 1 micron thick) in fresh mounts, but appearing thick-walled (up to 4 microns thick) in mounts revived in 2% KOH, "consisting of sclerified generative hyphae, apparently embedded in a mucilaginous matrix when fresh and agglutinating (?and thickening) when dried", "enclosing a medulla of loosely interwoven thin-walled or sclerified hyphae as revived", 3-12(28) microns wide; clamp connections present (cap cuticle, basidia), (Redhead), spores 4-5.5 x 2-4.5 microns (Moser); spores 4.3-6.3 x 3.9-5.1 microns, nearly round to tear-shaped, smooth, iodine-negative, colorless, with droplets; cystidia not seen, clamp connections mentioned for basidia (some) and cap cuticle (Breitenbach)

Spore deposit:
white (Redhead)

Notes:
Collections were examined from BC, NS, ON, CA, MI, NY, OH, Czechoslovakia, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom (England), and Japan, (Redhead). It was reported by Breitenbach(3) from Switzerland.

EDIBILITY

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Clitocybe lignatilis (Pers. ex Fr.) P. Karst.
Pleurotus lignatilis (Fr.) P. Kumm.