E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
Features include 1) a grayish to yellow-buff, depressed, moist cap that is radially striate with darker fibrils and minute pointed scales, 2) decurrent, well-spaced, narrow, yellowish gills, 3) a slender stem colored as the cap or paler, 4) growth on rotting conifer logs, 5) a white spore deposit, and 6) elliptic, smooth, amyloid spores. Bigelow (1982) transferred this species to Omphalina because of similarities to Chrysomphalina chrysophylla, but it is now maintained in Pseudoarmillariella, differing from Chrysomphalina species by production of incrusting pileal pigments, amyloid spores, and clamp connections. Some authors however retain it in Omphalina or Clitocybe. The genus Pseudoarmillariella is in an uncertain family (Tricholomataceae in Index Fungorum, accessed February 9, 2019, may be Hygrophoraceae).

It is found from eastern Canada to NC, west to WA, (Lincoff). It has been recorded from AB, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen). There are collections from BC at the University of British Columbia and Pacific Forestry Center. There are collections at the University of Washington from WA, MD, and MI. The type is from NY.

Cap:
2-6cm across, umbilicate to funnel-shaped; grayish to yellow-buff; "radially striate with darker fibrils, and with tiny tufts of blackish scales at intervals", (Barron), 2.5-5cm across, sunken in center to funnel-shaped; watery grayish yellow; "with brown to black radial fibers and pointed scales"; moist, (Lincoff), 2.5-6cm across, broadly convex soon becoming flat with sunken center or funnel-shaped, margin uplifted when old; brownish yellow to yellow-brown; "covered with minute blackish brown to reddish brown matted fibers and scales" that often disappear when old; moist, (Bessette)

Flesh:
yellowish (Bessette)

Gills:
decurrent, well-spaced, narrow; yellowish, (Barron), decurrent, almost distant, narrow, sometimes forking; yellowish, (Lincoff), "strongly decurrent, subdistant, narrow", occasionally forking; yellowish, sometimes with reddish brown stains when old, (Bessette)

Stem:
up to 6cm long, slender; cap-colored or paler; hairy at base, (Barron), 2.5-5cm x 0.15-0.3cm, solid; grayish yellow, (Lincoff), 2.5-6.5cm x 0.3-0.9cm, widened downward, solid; honey yellow, staining brownish where handled; smooth to slightly scurfy, (Bessette)

Veil:
[none]

Odor:
not distinctive (Bessette)

Taste:
not distinctive (Bessette)

Microscopic spores:
spores 6.5-8 x 3.5-5 microns, elliptic, smooth, amyloid, colorless, (Lincoff, Bessette), 6.5-9 x 4-5 microns, elliptic, smooth, amyloid; basidia 4-spored, 25-33 x 5-7 microns; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia not differentiated; hymenophoral trama of interwoven to somewhat undulate hyphae; cap brownish in KOH, pigment encrusted and in thickened walls, cutis hyphae cylindric, 2.5-6.5 microns wide, often protruding in fascicles; clamp connections present, (Bigelow)

Spore deposit:
white (Barron, Lincoff, Bessette)