Summary:
Features include 1) a thinly viscid, smooth cap that is yellow to yellow-ocher or tawny, 2) close, pallid gills that become pale rusty brown when old, 3) a tall stem that is silky pallid in the upper part above the veil zone and dark rust-brown fibrillose-striate in lower part, 4) a fine hairy zone of fleeting yellowish veil part way down the stem, 5) a faintly fragrant odor, 6) growth in clusters or groups, 7) a cigar brown to rusty brown spore deposit, and 8) microscopic characters including relatively small spores and utriform cystidia. The description is derived from Smith(3) except where specified. Trudell(4) say that Pholiota flavida, in its original sense, is probably the same species as Pholiota alnicola, but several authors have used the name Pholiota flavida for seemingly different entities.

Gills:
"adnate to adnexed, close, narrow to moderately broad", thin; pallid, becoming pale rusty brown to "Sudan brown" when old, no color change when bruised; edges even

Stem:
(4)6-10(12)cm x 0.5-1.5cm, solid, equal or narrowing towards base; pallid in upper part, becoming dark rust brown from the base upwards; silky in upper part, with a faint evanescent zone of fibrils from the thin veil, lower part fibrillose-striate, (Smith), usually more than 1 1/2 x cap diameter, (Scates)

Veil:
evanescent yellowish, forming fine fibrillose zone that may disappear; faint veil remnants variously arranged along cap margin

Odor:
faintly fragrant, or none (Smith), of citrus especially grapefruit, or sometimes only faintly fragrant, (Bessette), var. graveolens described from ID distinguished by odor that is heavy and like some fats, (Smith)

Microscopic spores:
spores 7-9 x 4-5 microns, ovate to subelliptic in face view, somewhat inequilateral in side view, with slight apiculus and faint suprahilar depression in some, smooth, apical germ pore distinct and apex in many appearing slightly truncate, in KOH dull tawny fading to ochraceous on standing, in Melzer''s reagent soon decidedly darker and redder (somewhat dextrinoid); basidia 4-spored, 24-32 x 5-7 microns, utriform (mostly slightly ventricose in mid-portion), yellowish in KOH and Melzer''s reagent; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia 26-40 x 3-9 microns, versiform, "subfusoid to near cylindric but outline mostly irregular, thin-walled, smooth, content homogeneous"; clamp connections present, (Smith)

Spore deposit:
cigar brown (Phillips), rusty brown (Bessette), "chestnut" to "auburn" (with a strong red tinge), (Smith(3) who note that the color of the spore deposit is a variation in the direction of the genus Psilocybe)

Notes:
Collections were examined from OR, ID, and ME, (Smith(3)). Flammula flavida was reported from WA by Edmonds(1). There are collections at the University of British Columbia labeled as Pholiota flavida from BC and CA. There are collections at the University of Washington labeled as Pholiota flavida from WA and OR.

EDIBILITY

no (Phillips)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Pholiota flavida (Fr.) Singer