Summary:
Features include 1) a variously shaped fruitbody with a pale yellow to ochraceous or reddish brown surface, often mottled with red or reddish brown, sometimes reddening or turning fulvous with bruising, usually with conspicuous brown to reddish brown rhizomorphs that are intergrown with the surface, 2) a peridium that tends to slough off in patches, 3) a chambered spore mass that is whitish becoming olive to olive brown, 4) chemical characters, and 5) microscopic characters including smooth, narrowly oblong spores, 6-spored and 8-spored basidia, and a peridium with hyphal incrustations and interhyphal debris that both become magenta in KOH. It is abundant among false truffles in the Pacific Northwest (Trappe(13)). It is common in the Pacific Northwest (Smith(4)).

Chemical Reactions:
FeSO4 on surface greenish to dark olive (rarely scarcely reacting), "KOH slowly tawny to reddish-brown or no reaction (reaction usually slow)", (Smith(30))

Interior:
"consistency when dried somewhat friable and easy to section"; "white becoming olivaceous to olive-brown" but near cinnamon-buff when dried; chambers moderately large, (Smith(30)), "firm or spongy becoming tough as it dries"; pallid to grayish becoming olive or olive-brown when old; minutely chambered, (Arora), chambers 2-4 per mm, (States), white at first, becoming tan, when mature olive to olive-brown or brown, (Trappe, M.(3))

Odor:
none at first, when old acid to acid metallic at times, (Smith(30)), faint and unpleasant (States), mild (Trappe, M.(3))

Taste:
mild (Trappe, M.(3))

Microscopic:
spores 6-8 x (1.7)2-2.5(3) microns; subhymenium cellular; hyphae of tramal plates thin-walled (under 0.5 microns thick) as revived in KOH; "peridium of rhizomorphs incorporated in a layer of appressed hyphae", hyphal incrustations and interhyphal debris vinaceous red (magenta) in KOH, "some cells inflated to 20 microns but no pockets of sphaerocysts seen, ground hyphae (excluding those of the rhizomorphs) 3-10 microns wide", (Smith(4)), spores 6-8 x (1.7)2-2.5(3) microns, narrowly oblong, smooth, in Melzer''s reagent yellowish-transparent to ochraceous and none seen with a false septum, in KOH colorless when young, yellowish at maturity, spores thin-walled, basal scar small and indistinct; basidia 6-spored and 8-spored, 12-20 x 5-7 microns, "ellipsoid to slightly clavate, thin-walled, collapsing", colorless or in chambers near peridium occasionally somewhat vinaceous in KOH; paraphyses resembling basidioles, thin-walled, colorless, collapsing; cystidia none; subhymenium "very indistinct and refractive, cellular layer consisting of basal cells of the hymenial elements"; tramal plates composed of hyphae that are subparallel to interwoven, gelatinous-refractive, smooth, thin-walled; peridium "of appressed-interwoven hyphae and rhizomorphs, the fundamental peridial hyphae usually dark vinaceous-red as revived in KOH from pigment deposits and wall incrustations, the rhizomorphs basically ochraceous in KOH but in some sections entirely vinaceous-red, or in others some red and some merely ochraceous (where there are no pigment pockets, some only red around the periphery)", "no sphaerocysts present but occasional inflated cells up to 15-20 microns present on some hyphae, hyphae mostly 3-10 microns diam and cells uninflated and thin-walled"; all tissues inamyloid; clamp connections absent, (Smith(30)), spores 5.5-8.0 x 2.0-2.8 microns, oblong to elliptic, with two droplets, (States)

Notes:
It is found from WA to southern CA, ID and CO, (Trappe(13)). It is found in BC, WA, OR, ID, NM, and WY, (Smith(4)). It has also been found in AZ (States(2)) and Mexico (in States(2)).

EDIBILITY

unknown (Arora)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Solenia urceolata Wallr. ex Fr.
Stigmatolemma urceolatum (Wallr. ex Fr.) Donk