Summary:
{See also Pholiota growing on Burnt Wood or Ground Table.} Pholiota brunnescens is distinguished by a viscid-slimy, dark yellow brown to orangish to dark reddish-brown cap, a scaly stem that is more than 0.5cm wide, a white to yellow veil, fruiting in recently burned areas, and a brown spore deposit. Microscopically voluminous caulocystidia are unlike the gill cystidia. Matheny(13) present molecular evidence to show that another A.H. Sm. & Hesler species, Pholiota luteobadia, is a synonym. Smith(3) described Pholiota luteobadia from a collection in Michigan, differentiating it in their key from P. brunnescens, P. highlandensis, and P. molesta on the basis of a cap that is bay red both when fresh and when dried together with ocher yellow gills that retain much of that color in drying. The synonymy does not much affect the descriptions of Pholiota brunnescens in western North America, except perhaps in allowing a completely bay red cap in that species concept (already described by Arora). It does extend the range of Pholiota brunnescens to Michigan.

Cap:
2-7cm across, convex to flat or with an uplifted often wavy margin; chestnut brown to dark reddish brown to orange-brown, tawny, or dark yellow brown, sometimes fading when old to dull orange, margin often paler; "viscid or very slimy when moist, smooth or with small scattered whitish veil remnants", (Arora), 2-7cm across, convex with incurved margin, expanding to flat or retaining a low umbo, at times slightly depressed around umbo; '"Prout's brown," "chestnut-brown," "tawny-olive," or "snuff-brown" (dark yellow-brown) margin at times fading to "apricot-orange."'; viscid to glutinous, at first sparsely decorated with small, whitish [also referred to as pallid] veil remnants forming evanescent [fleeting] fibrillose squamules [fine scales], (Smith)

Flesh:
rather soft; dingy brownish, (Arora), rather thick; dingy watery brown, (Smith)

Gills:
"adnate but seceding or adnexed", up to 0.8cm broad, "close to crowded" with several tiers of subgills; at first whitish, becoming pale grayish brown or dull cinnamon to dull gray brown or yellowish brown; edges pallid when young but colored like the sides when old, (Matheny), "adnate to adnexed, crowded, narrow"; "whitish or grayish or pale yellowish", becoming dull cinnamon brown to brown when old, (Arora), adnate to adnexed, crowded, narrow; at first whitish, becoming dull cinnamon; edges even or nearly even, (Smith)

Stem:
1.5-6.0(9.0) x (0.4)0.5-1.0cm. equal, solid becoming hollow; "(extreme) apex pruinose and pallid", lower part "pale yellow or citrine-yellow due to fibrillose-scaly veil remnants", stem surface staining tawny when old or where handled, (Matheny), 4-6(9)cm x (0.4)0.7-1cm, equal; whitish to pale yellow, often darkening somewhat in lower part when old or staining tawny when handled; "covered with numerous small yellowish, fibrillose scales (usually arranged in concentric belts)" below the ring zone, (Arora), 4-6(9)cm x (0.4)0.8-1cm, equal; whitish to ivory-yellow, staining tawny when old or where handled; ''with numerous concentric fibrillose zones of citrine-yellow veil remnants'', (Smith)

Veil:
cap margin may have "small scattered whitish veil remnants", "veil sometimes observed as a fibrillose-submembranous zone" near the stem apex, (Matheny), fibrillose, lemon yellow, "usually disappearing or forming only a slight superior ring on stalk", (Arora), veil remnants on stem citrine-yellow, forming concentric fibrillose zones; whitish veil remnants sparsely decorating cap, forming fleeting, fibrillose fine scales, (Smith)

Odor:
"mild, not remarkable, or slightly disagreeable", (Matheny), usually mild (Arora), mild or slightly disagreeable (Smith)

Taste:
"mild, not remarkable, or slightly disagreeable", (Matheny), mild or slightly disagreeable (Smith)

Microscopic spores:
spores 6.0-7.5 x 4.0-5.0 microns, elliptic to ovate, smooth, thick-walled to slightly thick-walled, walls about 0.5-0.75 microns thick, yellowish brown to brown in KOH, apices subconic or obtuse (not truncate) "and with a very small indistinct germ pore, apiculus small and indistinct"; basidia 4-spored, 18-21 x 6-7 microns, urniform, colorless; pleurocystidia "frequent, projecting well beyond the hymenium", 60-80 x 11-15 microns, "fusiform-ventricose with long cylindrical necks or tapered upward, thin-walled, apices obtuse to swollen", colorless to pale yellowish, cheilocystidia "similar to but shorter than pleurocystidia, many fusiform"; clamp connections present, (Matheny), spores 6-7 x 4-4.5 microns, elliptic, smooth, chrysocystidia absent, (Arora), spores 6-7 x 4-4.5 microns, ovate to subelliptic [somewhat elliptic] in face view, obscurely inequilateral to elliptic in side view, smooth, germ pore extremely minute, wall slightly thickened (+/- 0.3 microns), pale to medium tawny in KOH, pale tawny to ochraceous in Melzer''s reagent; basidia 4-spored, 18-22 x 5-6 microns, colorless in KOH, yellowish in Melzer''s reagent; pleurocystidia abundant, 48-70 x 9-16 microns, "fusoid-ventricose, apex obtuse", wall thin and colorless, "content homogeneous or with coagulated ochraceous content in neck as revived in KOH, in Melzer''s reagent the coagulated material rather rusty-ochraceous to dingy orange-brown, many forked (with 2 necks)", cheilocystidia 32-47 x 9-14 microns, "subfusoid to broadly fusoid or fusoid-ventricose, thin-walled", colorless to ochraceous in KOH, smooth; caulocystidia in tufts, 40-120 x 15-40 microns, voluminous, "clavate to clavate-mucronate to fusoid, some forked", smooth, thin-walled, content homogeneous, wall yellowish in KOH; clamp connections present, (Smith)

Spore deposit:
umbrinous (Matheny), brown (Arora)

Notes:
Collections were examined from WA, OR (including holotype), ID, AK, CA, MI (holotype of Pholiota luteobadia), and Mexico, (Matheny). Pholiota brunnescens has been reported from BC (Redhead(5) p.7). The University of Washington has collections from WA.

EDIBILITY

unknown (Arora)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Pholiota luteobadia A.H. Sm. & Hesler