Summary:
Features include 1) a moist to subviscid, orange, convex-campanulate cap, 2) yellow buff young gills that are adnexed to almost free, 3) a slender, pale, cartilaginous stem stuffed with frequently insect-infested pith, 4) a deeply rooting unbranched pseudorhiza, 5) a bitter taste, 6) a tendency to fruit in small groups, and 7) microscopic characters. The microscopic characters include large broadly almond-shaped to lemon-shaped spores with rounded to slightly pointed beaks, narrow filamentous to cylindric cheilocystidia with rounded or slightly swollen heads, a two-layered cap cuticle with spirally gel-encrusted hyphae and KOH-soluble diffuse pigments, and absent clamp connections, (Norvell(11)). Phaeocollybia piceae is distinguished from other Phaeocollybias by a) the uniformly orange to red-orange color of the cap, gills, and stem, b) a monopodial pseudorhiza, c) a tendency to become insect-infested at ground level (it may topple over when touched), d) spore size and shape (heavily ornamented limoniform, about 10 x 6 microns), e) thin-walled, irregularly clavate cheilocystidia, and f) a cap cuticle that lacks incrusting pigments, (Norvell(8)). It is not common.

Cap:
2-4cm across, obtusely conic with inrolled margin, broadly conic when old or bell-shaped, often with a sinus on one side; '"orange rufous" (deep orange), fading slowly to "orange buff" (moderate orange-yellow)'; thinly viscid, bald, (Smith), (1.1)1.5-4(5.5)cm across, convex - bell-shaped; bright orange to red-orange; moist to subviscid, bald, (Castellano), about 1.5-6(9)cm across, "obtusely conic-convex with tall umbo, young incurved margin and inrolled edge" expanding to broadly campanulate [bell-shaped] with straight to downturned margin and "incurved edge that is often sinuate on one side"; hygrophanous, some shade of bright to dull orange or zonate with darker or duller disc and edge; "moist to thinly viscid, smooth, bald, occasionally striate" [it is also noted that edge becomes striate after drying], (Norvell(11))

Flesh:
thin and cartilaginous, (Smith), thin; pale orange-tan to pink-tan, (Castellano), about 0.2-0.3(0.5)cm thick at disc, rapidly thinning over gills, firm when young; pallid when young but soon translucent and colored like the surface; in stem stuffed with pinkish orange pith, cartilaginous rind 0.1-0.2cm thick, (Norvell(11))

Gills:
reaching the top of the stem, crowded, narrow; ''"cinnamon buff" becoming "orange-cinnamon" (moderate orange) to pale cinnamon''; edges even, (Smith), free; pale orange-tan, becoming clay-colored from spores, (Castellano), ascending-adnexed to almost free; "yellow buff when young, darkening to cinnamon or rusty brown"; with serrulate [finely saw-toothed] edges when old, (Norvell(11))

Stem:
8-12cm x 0.8-1.3cm, tapered to long pseudorhiza; "cinnamon-buff" (moderate orange-yellow) in upper part, "ferruginous" (deep orange) in lower part, when old or when dried purplish red; bald, moist, (Smith), 2-9.8cm x 0.3-1cm above ground, cartilaginous, extending as pseudorhiza; top orange intensifying to deep orange-red when old; top bald or covered with short, dark red-brown fibrils, (Castellano), about 4-8cm long above ground, combined length with pseudorhiza up to 22.5cm, 0.4-1.2cm wide at top, upper stem equal or gradually narrowing, "characteristically swelling slightly at ground level"; +/- central, rigid, rind spiraling slightly, stem "stuffed with firm to spongy, pinkish orange pith that characteristically is consumed by insects at ground level", unbranched pseudorhiza vertical-monopodial and regenerative [can give rise to new fruitbodies], continuous with lower stem "and gradually tapering down to an upwards curled origin that is often found attached to older pseudorhizae or pseudorhizal remnants"; stem top orange to pinkish buff when young, grading to deeper orange or orange-red at ground level, staining or bruising bright orange, pseudorhiza "dark reddish to orangish brown, staining bright orange"; stem surface "dry to lubricous, typically bald, matte to occasionally longitudinally striate", (Norvell(11)), stem is often insect-infected at ground level, rendering it hollow, even though the pseudorhiza is not insect-infested, (L. Norvell, pers. comm.)

Veil:
veil remnants infrequent on upper stem as inconspicuous reddish brown short fibrils, (Norvell(11))

Odor:
slight, (Smith), variable, usually faint, (Castellano), vaguely radish-like to sweetly farinaceous or not distinctive when young, occasionally pungent (''like paint solvent'') when very old, (Norvell(11)), mild or somewhat penetrating (Trudell)

Taste:
bitter (Smith), usually slightly to intensely bitter (Castellano), usually bitter, occasionally mild or radish-like, (Norvell(11))

Microscopic spores:
spores 8.5-11 x 4.5-6 microns, ovate in face view, broadly inequilateral in side view, apex obscurely beaked, spores minutely warty, rusty brown in KOH; basidia 4-spored; pleurocystidia absent; cheilocystidia abundant, (10)20-32 x 4.5-8 microns, filamentose to clavate, colorless in KOH; cap pellicle "of gelatinous hyphae interwoven in the basal area and forming a turf in what might be termed the epicutis"; clamp connections absent, (Smith), spores 8.7-10.2(11) microns, limoniform [lemon-shaped] with slightly blunted apical beak, "slightly to moderately ornamented, in KOH red-brown"; cheilocystidia 16-38 x 4-5(6) microns, "narrowly clavate, regular to slightly irregular in outline"; clamp connections absent, (Castellano), about 10 x 6 microns, lemon-shaped, heavily ornamented, (Norvell(8)), spores (8)9-10.2(11) x (5)5.3-6.3(6.5) microns (average 9.4 x 6 microns), in face view "broadly almond-shaped with small apical snout", in side view broadly lemon-shaped "with rounded apical beak and distinct eccentric apiculus", "verruculose with ornamentation only occasionally projecting beyond spore outline, apical beak smooth", spore color in KOH medium orange amber, in water paler, in Melzer''s reagent dextrinoid; basidia (2-)4-spored, 30-45 x 6.5-8.5 microns, colorless with granular contents, clavate above long 2-3 microns diam pedicel; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia frequent to abundant, "arising from the subhymenium and often intermixed with basidia", lengths variable and indeterminate (up to 50 microns long), thin-walled, colorless, narrowly cylindric with apices swelling occasionally to 4 microns wide above narrow 2-3 microns wide bases, "some specimens also contain large broadly basidiole-like elements", "apical extensions from senescent narrow elements occasional"; cap cuticle a 2-layered ixocutis, the top 20-50 microns thick suprapellis of radially aligned, narrow (2-3 microns wide), gelatinized, colorless hyphae "that are frequently spirally-gel incrusted", the bottom subpellis with long (about 85 microns long), inflated (6-8 microns wide) sausage-shaped hyphae "that narrow abruptly to highly refractive septa", "diffuse KOH-soluble orange pigments soon dissipating or concentrating in large brilliant orange drops with intraparietal orange pigments concentrated at the septa", "occasional orange and colorless oleifers also present"; tibiiform diverticula abundant on primordial and pseudorhizal surfaces, up to 20 x 1 micron, usually capitulate with 1.5-2 microns wide subglobose heads, "secretory with/without (sub)globose head and/or apical droplet", highly refractive, colorless; clamp connections found only rarely in the outer stem cuticle layer, absent elsewhere, (Norvell(11))

Spore deposit:
dark cinnamon brown (Norvell(11)), dark red-brown (Castellano)

Notes:
It is known from about 35 sites in BC, WA, OR, and CA, (Norvell(11)).

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