Summary:
Pholiota astragalina is identified by its distinctive brilliant pinkish-orange cap which is viscid or slimy when wet, yellow gills, growth on rotting conifers, and brown spore deposit.

Cap:
2-5cm across, bell-shaped or obtuse becoming convex, umbonate, flat or with an uplifted, often wavy margin when old; bright reddish orange to pinkish orange, margin sometimes paler, fading somewhat when old and often developing blackish discolorations; "smooth, viscid or slimy when wet but soon dry", "margin often hung with veil remnants when young", (Arora), 2-4cm across, obtusely conic or obtusely umbonate when young, expanding to obtusely bell-shaped and finally with spreading or uplifted margin that may become wavy, usually retaining slight umbo; brilliant pinkish orange ("flame-scarlet" to "bittersweet-orange" in Ridgway(1) colors), fading somewhat when old and soon developing blackish discolorations; smooth, viscid to glutinous when wet, soon dry, with pallid fibrillose veil remnants along the margin, otherwise bald, (Smith(3))

Flesh:
thin; orange to yellow, (Arora), moderately thick, tapering evenly to margin, about 0.4cm at disc, pliant and watery; orange to yellowish orange, in stem "cream-color" at apex and "sordid orange-buff" in the base, (Smith(3)), orange, turning blackish when old, (Trudell)

Gills:
"typically adnexed or notched or even free, close"; bright yellow or yellow-orange, discoloring where bruised or when old, (Arora), sharply and deeply adnexed, at times almost free, close, 2-3 tiers of subgills, gills moderately broad, 0.3-0.4cm broad; orange-yellow, discoloring somewhat where bruised; edges even, (Smith(3)), slowly staining yellow-brown where bruised, (Bessette(1))

Stem:
5-12cm x 0.4-0.7cm, equal or tapered toward base, hollow, sometimes sinuous; pale yellow, the base often more orange or discoloring brownish; fibrillose, without scales, (Arora), 5-9cm x 0.4-0.7cm, equal, round in cross-section, hollow, sometimes flexuous [wavy]; pallid yellowish from the yellow veil, base tinged faintly like cap and soon sordid orange, brown where handled; more or less fibrillose, becoming bald, (Smith(3))

Veil:
cap margin often hung with veil remnants when young, (Arora), leaving pallid fibrillose remnants on cap margin, surface of stem more or less fibrillose and pallid yellowish from the yellow veil, (Smith(3)), ring typically absent (Bessette(1))

Odor:
none (Smith(3)), distinct (Phillips), not distinctive (Bessette(1)), faint, mushroomy, (Buczacki)

Taste:
bitter (Arora, Smith(3), Phillips, Bessette(1))

Microscopic spores:
spores 5-7 x 3.8-4.5 microns, ovate to elliptic in face view, in side view somewhat inequilateral to obscurely inequilateral, smooth, minute germ pore, not truncate, wall about 0.3 microns thick, revived in KOH rusty brown, in Melzer''s reagent paler and more cinnamon; basidia 4-spored, 18-26 x 5-7 microns, "narrowly clavate, yellowish in KOH and in Melzer''s reagent"; pleurocystidia 35-60 x 8-14 microns, "fusoid-ventricose to clavate-mucronate", base often 6-8 microns or more broad, "wall thin and smooth, apex obtuse to subacute", "content amorphous-refractive and in some organized into a solid refractive mass, in others more or less resembling coagulated material and somewhat granular in appearance, both types intergrading, the coagulated content bright yellow in KOH and orange to orange-red in Melzer''s reagent", cheilocystidia 40-75 x 4-8 x 3-4.4 microns, "ventricose at base and neck a long cylindric tube ending in an obtuse apex, walls at times with adhering debris and often yellowish in KOH"; clamp connections present, (Smith(3)), spores 5-7 x 3.5-4.5 microns, elliptic, smooth, chrysocystidia present, (Arora)

Spore deposit:
brown (Arora, Phillips), reddish brown (Bessette(1)), yellowish brown (Miller)

Notes:
It has been found in BC (Gamiet) and there are collections at the University of British Columbia. Smith(3) examined collections from WA, OR, ID, ON, CA, MI, MT, NC, France, Sweden, and Switzerland, and mentions TN in the distribution. Breitenbach(4) give the distribution as North America, Europe, and Asia.

EDIBILITY

too bitter (Arora)