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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) thin, tough caps that are up to 5cm across (but often fused with other caps), colored bluish black to purple-black or purplish black, appressed-fibrillose, and at least faintly zoned, 2) flesh that is purple-black to bluish black, 3) very short, irregularly decurrent teeth that are gray to dark purplish gray-brown, 4) a tough, roughened stem that is colored like the cap, 5) white spore deposit, and 6) spiny spores.
Phellodon atratus is found at least in BC, WA, OR, and CA, (Harrison).
Cap: 1-5cm across but often fused with other caps, flat to depressed or irregular; bluish black to purple-black or black, "the margin often slightly paler or purpler"; "dry, usually at least faintly zoned concentrically", (Arora), 1-5cm, single or more or less concrescent [becoming joined], irregular, disc depressed, margin uneven and when old torn-fringed; "aniline black" to dull "bluish black", margin zoned, pale "brownish drab" to "vinaceous drab"; cap surface slightly scrobiculate [with shallow pits], sometimes bearing small caps, uneven, appressed-fibrillose, (Harrison), flat or slightly depressed to umbilicate; margin uneven, wavy, tapered on edge; margin bruising to "blackish purple" when handled, (Hall), dark purple-black, zoned with edges normally somewhat lighter in color, (Trudell)
Flesh: in cap and stem "thin, tough, fibrous, pliant, sometimes with thin outer or upper spongy layer"; purple-black to bluish black, (Arora), 0.2-0.3cm thick, tough, rigid; dull violet black, (Harrison), up to 0.5cm thick, may or may not be duplex depending on weathering, in stem becoming "sepia" or "blackish brown" when bruised, (Hall), purple-black or blue-black (Trudell)
Teeth: 0.1-0.2cm, "irregularly decurrent; gray to dark purplish-gray-brown, darker where bruised", (Arora), spines 0.1-0.2cm long, decurrent, close, ending at sharply marked "cinnamon brown" line on stem; "vinaceous drab", "Quaker brown" to "Quaker drab", (Harrison), 2-9 per square mm, fleshy, round in cross-section, subulate [awl-shaped], becoming "blackish brown" to "Vandyke brown" when bruised, (Hall), very short; "light gray to dark gray to purplish gray", (Trudell)
Stem: 2-5cm x 0.3-0.5cm, "usually central, sometimes compound or branched", narrowing downward but usually widened at ground level by felty mycelial layer, stem rough, often flattened; "colored more or less like cap", (Arora), 2-5cm long, irregular, frequently flattened, sometimes rooting, enlarged at ground by felty layer of spongy mycelium, sometimes branched to produce a compound fruiting body, firm to almost woody in center although occasionally juice can be squeezed out; "dull bluish black" to blackish; rough, subtomentose, (Harrison), becoming "blackish brown" when bruised (Hall)
Chemical Reactions: flesh turns deep blue-black in KOH (Harrison)
Odor: mild or faintly fragrant (Arora), none to smoky fungoid (Harrison), fenugreek in cap, faintly smoky in stem, (Hall)
Taste: mild (Arora, Harrison, Hall)
Microscopic: spores 4-5 x 3-5 microns, round or nearly round, minutely spiny, (Arora), spores 4.5-5 x 4-5 microns, round to nearly round, finely echinulate (spiny), with 10-15 processes visible on circumference, with a distinct mucro; basidia 4.5-5 microns wide, thin-walled and reviving poorly, no clamp connections seen at base; hyphae flexuous [wavy], 3.5-4.5 microns wide, septa far apart, few branches, no clamp connections seen, contain dark granules, context appears amyloid in Melzer''s reagent, (Harrison), spores 3.8-4.2 x 3.3-3.8 microns, round to nearly round, echinulate, inamyloid; basidia 33-38 x 4-7 microns, clavate; cystidia absent; hyphae up to 6 microns wide, brownish, septate, without clamp connections, (Hall)
Spore Deposit: white (Arora, Harrison)
Habitat / Range
scattered to gregarious, on ground under conifers, especially Sitka spruce, (Arora), gregarious, compound and often concrescent [becoming joined], under conifers, (Harrison), singly or in extensive patches in duff under Pseudotsuga (Douglas-fir), Abies (fir), or Tsuga (hemlock), (Hall)
Similar Species
Phellodon melaleucus unless rain-soaked is dark brown with a contrasting white margin, as opposed to nearly black, KOH reaction on the flesh is olivaceous, and microscopically dark granules are only found in the cuticular hyphae, and flesh does not appear amyloid, (Harrison). P. melaleucus has a dark brown cap with purplish tints and pale edges, (Trudell). P. melaleucus has purplish black to purplish gray flesh, but the cap is dark brown to purplish gray with a pallid margin, spines are whitish to gray, and stem is very thin and dark brown to black, and sometimes deeply rooted, (Arora), P. melaleucus is very similar, but can be distinguished by the color of the cap and the hymenium (more difficult when very wet, but on drying separation is again possible): P. melaleucus has "dark vinaceous-brown" cap at times tinged "violaceous blue" with ''whitish'' margin and ''ash-gray'' teeth, whereas P. atratus has an "aniline-black" cap with a "violaceous blue" margin and a "vinaceous-drab" hymenium, (Hall). |Hydnellum fuscoindicum is "somewhat similar in color but larger and fleshy-brittle rather than pliant and tough", (Arora).
Harrison(1) (using Ridgway colors), Arora(1), Trudell(4)*, Hall(1) (colors from Kornerup(2) in single quotation marks, from Ridgway in double quotation marks), Castellano(2)*, Desjardin(6)*, Siegel(2)* References for the fungi
