Details about map content are available here Click on the map dots to view record details.
Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) a faintly zoned cap colored a grayish brown that may have purple brown or yellowish brown tints, 2) thin tough flesh that is brown to purplish gray or purplish black and stains dark olivaceous with KOH, 3) short grayish brown teeth, and 4) light to dark brown tough stem.
There are scattered records of Phellodon melaleucus from the Carolinas to Canada, including MI, but it is most abundant in the north and particularly in the Pacific Northwest, (Harrison). It occurs specifically in BC (collections at Pacific Forestry Centre include one determined by K.A. Harrison) and WA, (Hall). It is also found in Europe (Breitenbach).
Cap: 2-8cm, (but usually several caps growing together and up to 10-20cm across), irregularly rounded with depressed center, margin wavy and somewhat fringed; yellow-brown to gray-brown, dark brown when moist, barely zoned, margin whitish to cream-colored; cap surface finely tomentose, with fine radial wrinkles, (Breitenbach), 1-6cm, flat or disc depressed and rough, sometimes with small caps attached; pale to dark violaceous brown fading to very pale violaceous brown when old, margin light grayish drab; appressed-fibrillose, appearing zoned when moist but not on drying, (Harrison(3)), up to 3cm across, (fruitbody 3.5-5cm tall), centrally depressed or slightly funnel-shaped, margin thin, wavy, irregular; cap surface "purplish gray" or "light purplish gray" on the disc, bruising darker, margin "vinaceous-fawn" to "avellaneous"; "faintly zonate, velvety, appressed-tomentose, some small radial ridges present on some specimens", (Hall), dark brown to purplish gray with a pallid margin, (Arora), dark brown with purplish tints and pale edges, bruising brownish, easily imprinted when touched with a finger, (Trudell)
Flesh: corky, tough, zoned; light to red brown, (Breitenbach), thin, soft; cinnamon drab, darker if wet; zoned, nearly azonate when faded, fibrillose, (Harrison(3)), 0.2-0.3(0.5)cm thick, "azonate, faintly duplex, the upper layer soft-felty, the lower layer fibrous-papery", in stem duplex, the hard inner core ''grayish brown'', the corky thin outer layer ''somalis'', (Hall), purplish black to purplish gray (Arora)
Teeth: up to 0.3cm long, somewhat decurrent; white when young, then brownish, (Breitenbach), 0.1-0.15cm long, close, irregularly decurrent; "grayish drab becoming dull drab, sordid brown when bruised", (Harrison(3)), up to 1.5cm long, 4-6 per square mm, irregularly decurrent, fleshy, round in cross-section, subulate [awl-shaped], sterile area at margin; "lilac-gray" or ''ash-gray'', ''violet white'' or ''white'', bruising ''brownish black'', (Hall)
Stem: 1-3cm x 0.3-1cm, cylindric, often several arising together from a ball of humus and mycelium; light to dark brown; smooth to somewhat fibrillose but not tomentose, (Breitenbach), 3-6cm x 0.2-0.6cm, compound, rooting up to 10cm but pseudorhiza easily lost when collecting, stem sometimes branched; dark violaceous brown, cinnamon-drab (dull violaceous) in upper part, dark vinaceous brown in the base; pseudorhiza carbonaceous (black), very uneven, (Harrison(3)), 1-3cm x 0.3cm, central, "tapered", base "not swollen, pointed or truncate"; stem "dark neutral gray", ''somalis'', or ''brownish gray'', base colored the same, (Hall)
Chemical Reactions: flesh turns dark olivaceous with KOH, (Harrison)
Odor: when drying like Maggi seasoning (Breitenbach), of fenugreek, especially when dried, (Hall), none, but "has the strongly fragrant odor of most Phellodon species when dried", (Harrison)
Taste: mild to somewhat bitter (Breitenbach), not distinguishable (Hall), mild (Harrison)
Microscopic: spores 3.5-4.5 x 3-4 microns excluding spines, nearly round, with +/- pointed spines, inamyloid, colorless; basidia 4-spored, 22-35 x 4-5 microns, slenderly clavate, without basal clamp connection; cystidia not seen; hyphae monomitic, in subhymenium 1.5-3.5 microns wide and thin-walled, in the cap trama 2-5 microns wide and rather thick-walled; clamp connections absent, (Breitenbach), spores 4-5 microns in diameter, round to nearly round, finely echinulate; basidia 25-30 x 4.5-5.5 microns; hyphae (2)3-4(5) microns wide, "in Melzer''s reagent no reaction in spines or flesh, but in the surface hairs and in some of the hyphae next to the hairs a slight apparent-amyloid reaction", (Harrison(3)), spores 3.6-4.2 x 3.2-4.0 microns, round to nearly round, echinulate, inamyloid; basidia 30-35 x 4-5 microns, clavate; hyphae up to 8 microns wide, brownish, thin-walled, without clamp connections, (Hall)
Spore Deposit: white (Buczacki)
Habitat / Range
gregarious to concrescent [growing joined] in large masses, under conifers, (Harrison(3)), single or in small groups, on ground in duff under Pseudotsuga (Douglas-fir), Pinus (pine), or Tsuga (hemlock), (Hall), cespitose or in fairy rings, in mixed conifer-hardwood forests, (Breitenbach)
Similar Species
Phellodon niger likely occurs in the Pacific Northwest as well, based on DNA found in British Columbia; apparently it is like P. melaleucus, but has duplex flesh in the stem (hard core) and a tomentose stem, (D. Miller, pers. comm.). |Phellodon atratus is nearly black, the KOH reaction on the flesh is deep bluish black, and microscopically dark granules are found in the hyphae of the flesh (in P. melaleucus only in the cuticular hyphae) and the flesh appears amyloid, (Harrison(1)). P. atratus has a cap that is bluish black to purplish black or black, flesh that is purple-black to bluish black, spines that are gray to dark purplish gray-brown, and a stem that is colored like the cap, (Arora(1)). P. atratus 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 a "dark vinaceous-brown" cap at times tinged "violaceous blue" with a ''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). See also SIMILAR section of Phellodon tomentosus.
Harrison(3), Hall(1) (colors in single quotation marks from Kornerup(2), colors in double quotation marks from Ridgway(1)), Breitenbach(2)*, Trudell(4), Arora(1), Harrison(1) (comparing P. atratus to P. melaleucus (Fr.) Banker), Buczacki(1)* References for the fungi
