Summary:
Features include 1) a fibrillose-streaked, slimy-viscid cap that is dark wine-colored-brown to reddish-brown at the center and paler buff to cream outwards and has rows of concentrically-arranged veil remnants when young, 2) adnate to sinuate, close, whitish to creamy yellowish young gills, 3) a pallid to greenish yellow stem that has a somewhat bulbous base and that has dingy pinkish brown flaky scales or patches on its lower part ending at a ring zone, 4) growth on fallen conifer branches and debris, and 5) microscopic characters. It is a member of Arora''s Pholiota lubrica group (viscid-slimy cap, scaly stem, single to gregarious but rarely clustered growth in humus or on rotting wood). The Pholiota decorata subgroup (as enumerated by Scates(2)) of the Pholiota lubrica group includes Pholiota alniphila (occidentalis), P. rubronigra, and P. vinaceobrunnea. Trudell(4) say that Pholiota decorata is very common in the Pacific Northwest.

Cap:
3-8cm across, flat-convex with a hairy fringed margin, becoming flatter with umbo and spreading margin; "disc dark brownish fading to fawn, the margin pale brown to light fawn or dark cream"; slimy to viscid with rows of concentric hairy scales that often disappear before maturity, smooth and appearing streaked with fine hairs beneath the gluten when old, (Phillips), 3-7(9)cm across, obtuse to convex when young, expanding to umbonate with a spreading margin, or nearly flat; disc dark vinaceous brown, fading, the margin pallid to avellaneous, when old often "Isabella color" [Ridgway(1) color]; "glutinous to viscid, with numerous to scattered rows of concentrically arranged fibrillose scales above the gelatinous layer", the scales often disappearing before maturity, when old often bald and appearing fibrillose-streaked under gluten, "margin usually fringed with fibrils when young", (Smith), "moist to viscid and streaky-fibrillose or scaly, at least when young", as the scales disappear when old, (Trudell)

Flesh:
thick, watery to soft and pliant; white, becoming yellowish when old, (Phillips), "moderately thick, watery cartilaginous to soft and pliant"; white to (when old) yellowish, cortex brownish in base, (Smith)

Gills:
adnate to sinuate, close, moderately broad; white to creamy yellowish; edges even, (Phillips), "adnate to sinuate, sometimes merely depressed, close, moderately broad, thin"; white to yellowish ("ivory-yellow" Ridgway(1) color), becoming avellaneous and finally dingy clay-color; edges even or nearly so, (Smith)

Stem:
4-9cm x 0.3-1cm, somewhat bulbous base, stem solid becoming hollow; pallid to pale greenish yellow with dingy pinkish brown flaky scales or patches on lower part; top silky, (Phillips), 4-8(11)cm x 0.3-0.8(1)cm, equal above a subbulbous [somewhat bulbous] base or base not enlarged, solid but becoming hollow; "cortex brownish in base, yellowish to pallid above, surface over lower portion covered by dingy vinaceous brown floccose-fibrillose scales or patches from a ruptured sheath which at first extends to the annular zone or scales mostly whitish, apex silky and pale greenish yellow to pallid", (Smith)

Veil:
ring zone present (Smith)

Odor:
none or faintly fragrant (Phillips), faintly fragrant or lacking, (Smith)

Taste:
mild (Phillips), mild or nearly so (Smith)

Microscopic spores:
spores 6-7.5 x 3.5-4.5 microns, oval to elliptic, smooth, tiny germ pore at apex, pleurocystidia thick-walled or thin-walled, (Phillips), spores (5.5)6-7.5(8.5) x 3.5-4.5 microns, ovate to elliptic in face view with some obscurely wedge-shaped, in side view obscurely inequilateral to somewhat bean-shaped, smooth, with minute germ pore, wall about 0.25-0.3 microns thick, "ochraceous rusty-brown to ochraceous-tawny in KOH, paler ochraceous in Melzer''s reagent"; basidia 4-spored, (19)23-27 x 5-7 microns, clavate, colorless to yellowish in KOH, yellowish in Melzer''s reagent; pleurocystidia 50-90 x (6)9-18 microns, "fusoid-ventricose with obtuse apex, with a slender basal stalk in many extending from below the subhymenium", thick-walled to thin-walled (on same cap) "but some thick-walled individuals seen in every mount", wall 1-1.5 or up to 2 microns thick in neck but thin at apex, smooth, colorless to yellow in KOH (pigment most in content and fading), cheilocystidia 36-55 x 8-12 microns, "subfusoid to nearly clavate or more or less fusoid-ventricose", yellow to colorless in KOH, mostly thin-walled, smooth in KOH; caulocystidia versiform: 1) 15-40 x 12-30 microns, clavate to vesiculose, walls smooth, thin to slightly thickened and yellowish to colorless in KOH, 2) 40-60 x 9-14 microns, subfusiform, with slightly thickened (0.5 microns) walls, content homogeneous, occurring both types in a cluster; clamp connections present, (Smith)

Spore deposit:
cigar brown (Phillips)

Notes:
Smith(3) examined collection of Pholiota decorata from BC, WA, OR, ID, CA, and CO. Martin, K.J.(3) reported it from AZ

EDIBILITY

no (Phillips)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Flammula decorata (Murrill) Murrill
Gymnopilus decoratus Murrill