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

Summary:
Pseudosperma spurium is a robust species with a conic appressed-fibrillose cap that is light tan to reddish tan or yellow-brown and tends to crack when mature; notched close gills with whitish edges; an equal, longitudinally striate stem that is white to brown; a spermatic odor; and microscopic characters including smooth spores and clavate to ellipsoid cheilocystidia. The description here is derived from Kropp(4).

Kropp(4) examined Utah collections. It is known also from BC (as well as Europe), but the BC samples were identified from sequences obtained during soil sampling rather than from fruiting bodies.

Gills:
notched, 0.3-0.7cm broad, close; pale yellow-brown when young becoming dull yellow-brown when mature with whitish edges

Stem:
4-8cm x 1-1.8cm, "equal, solid, occasionally joined at the base"; white when young becoming light brown when mature with a pallid or pale yellow-brown to yellow-brown apex, "sometimes with a white base"; longitudinally striate

Odor:
spermatic

Microscopic spores:
spores 8.0-11.5 x 4.5-6 microns, elliptic to phaseoliform [bean-shaped], smooth; basidia 4-spored or 2-spored, 31-38 x 9-11 microns, clavate; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia numerous, 23-35 x 13-25 microns, varying in size, broadly clavate to ellipsoid, thin-walled; clamp connections present

Spore deposit:
presumably a shade of brown