Summary:
Features include a zoned yellow-brown to dark brown thin cap, leathery brown flesh that is duplex in stem, short teeth that are whitish becoming ashy gray-brown with paler tips and staining vinaceous buff when bruised, a usually slender stem colored like the cap, a fragrant odor, and a white spore deposit. Hall notes that collections vary from thin-fleshed, delicate, small specimens to very large, thick-fleshed, robust ones.

Chemical Reactions:
flesh turns black in KOH, gray to black in FeSO4, (McKnight), when fresh KOH blackens surface and flesh, but not when dried, when fresh FeSO4 turns disc grayish then black, and flesh grayish, but no reaction when fruitbody dried, (Harrison)

Odor:
usually fragrant (like fenugreek) (Arora), faint to slightly fragrant of fenugreek as fruitbodies dry, (Harrison), fenugreek to fungoid (Hall), faintly fragrant, not noticeably of fenugreek, more like rabbit tobacco (Gnaphalium obtusifolium), when dried, distinct of blackstrap molasses, (Coker), when drying like Maggi seasoning, (Breitenbach), faint, indefinite, pleasant, spicy when dry, (Buczacki)

Taste:
mild or slightly bitter (Arora), "mild or slightly sweetish with a slight biting reaction in the throat", (Harrison), none (Hall), faintly sweetish-bitter (Coker)

Microscopic:
spores 3-4.5 microns in diameter, round or nearly round, minutely spiny, (Arora), spores 3-4 microns in diameter, round to nearly round, finely echinulate, apiculate; basidia 4-spored, 20-25 x 4-5.3 microns; hyphae of cap about 4 microns wide, thin-walled, septate, in stem up to 6.3 microns wide, with thicker walls, branches rarely seen, (Harrison), spores 3.3-4.4 x 3.3-4.0 microns, round to nearly round, echinulate, inamyloid; basidia 4-spored, 35-43 x 3.3-5.3 microns, cylindroclavate; cystidia absent; hyphae up to 4.7 microns wide, colorless, thin-walled, septate, without clamp connections, (Hall), spores 3-4 x 2.5-3.5 microns (Breitenbach)

Spore Deposit:
white (Arora, Harrison)

Notes:
Phellodon tomentosus is sometimes abundant in the Pacific Northwest and is found also in CA, (Arora). It is found specifically in WA (Hall), BC (collections at Pacific Forestry Centre determined by K.A. Harrison), WA, OR, and AK (collections at the University of Washington), and ME, NC, NH, NY, NC, TN, Italy, and reported from NS and NB, (Coker). It is found in MI and generally throughout conifer areas in northern regions throughout North America and Europe, (Harrison).

EDIBILITY

unknown (Arora)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Ramaria brunnea (Zeller) Corner
Ramaria testaceoflava var. brunnea Zeller