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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) collybioid stature, 2) a hygrophanous, reddish brown to cinnamon or ochraceous buff, moist, striate cap, 3) close, buff to "pinkish cinnamon" gills, 4) a dry, bald stem colored as the cap, 5) a farinaceous odor and taste, 6) growth under conifers or in mixed woods, 7) a pinkish brown spore deposit, and 8) microscopic characters including spores that are angular in end view, and clamp connections. Baroni(1) finds no evidence to support Singer''s contention that R. nitellina is a species without clamp connections. MycoBank, accessed September 20, 2015 and October 3, 2020, listed the current name as Clitopilus nitellinus (Fr.) Noordel. & Co-David, but the online Species Fungorum, accessed the same date, gives the current name as Rhodophana nitellina (Fr.) Papetti.
Collections were examined from WA, ID, QC, AK, CA, ME, NH, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Japan, (Baroni(1)). Breitenbach(4) include North Africa in distribution. There are collections from BC at the University of British Columbia. The University of Washington has collections from WA, ID, AK, CA, and WY.
Gills: "variable, from slightly sinuate to adnexed or adnate and with a decurrent tooth", occasionally appearing subdecurrent when margin uplifted, close, moderately broad (up to 0.5cm), somewhat fragile; "light buff", "warm buff" or "pinkish cinnamon", edges colored as faces; edges even, (Baroni), broadly adnate, sometimes with a subdecurrent tooth, 30-50 reaching stem, broad, 3-6 subgills between pairs of neighboring gills; whitish to cream when young, later light reddish brown; edges smooth to slightly wavy, (Breitenbach)
Stem: 2-6cm x 0.2-0.7cm, equal, stuffed, soon hollow; colored as cap; dry, bald, white mycelioid or tomentose over base, (Baroni), 3-7cm x 0.4-0.9cm, cylindric, at times somewhat widened toward apex, cartilaginous, hollow; orange-brown, paler to yellow at top; "smooth to slightly longitudinally grooved", "entire length slightly longitudinally white-fibrillose, base often white-tomentose", (Breitenbach)
Odor: farinaceous (Baroni, Breitenbach)
Taste: farinaceous (Baroni), "mild, farinaceous, with a sourish component", (Breitenbach)
Microscopic spores: spores (6.5)7-9(14) x (3.5)4-5(6) microns, broadly elliptic to oboval in face view, almond-shaped to broadly elliptic and with suprahilar depression in side view, angular in end view, "undulate-pustulate in all views, walls cyanophilic, inamyloid", colorless to pale yellowish in KOH; basidia mostly 4-spored, occasionally 1-spored or 2-spored, 25-35 x 6.5-8.5(10) microns, lacking cyanophilic and siderophilic bodies, scleroid basidia rare; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia not differentiated; cap cuticle "a compact layer of repent, radially arranged hyphae", non-incrusted, cylindric, 3-6.5 microns wide; clamp connections present in all tissues, (Baroni), spores 6-8.9 x 4-5 microns, elliptic to almond-shaped, cristate-verrucose [with warty longitudinal ridges], colorless to grayish, cyanophilic; basidia 4-spored, 28-40 x 7-9 microns, narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia not seen; cap cuticle of periclinal, intertwined hyphae 2-7 micron wide, colorless, most septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach)
single, scattered to gregarious on soil or humus in conifer or mixed woods, "July to November and through May in the Pacific Northwest of the United States", (Baroni), single to gregarious or grouped in hardwood forests, on humus or leaf litter, (Breitenbach), spring, summer, fall, winter
Similar Species
Other similar Rhodocybe species occur elsewhere (e.g. Rhodocybe melleopallens - collection from BC at the University of British Columbia, Rhodocybe griseospora, and Rhodocybe lignicola). It is important to note color, structure, odor, taste, and color of spore deposit, (Baroni). |Other Rhodocybe species with collections from BC at the University of British Columbia include Rhodocybe roseiavellanea (see also Clitopilus nuciolens), Rhodocybe (Clitocella) mundula, Rhodocybe (Clitocella) fallax, and Rhodocybe (Entocybe) priscua. |Gymnopus dryophilus lacks the farinaceous odor and has a cream-colored spore deposit, smooth spores, and a cap cuticle with a different structure, (Breitenbach). |Rhodocybe olympiana (A.H. Sm.) Lennox, Mycotaxon 9(1): 137 (1979) has a cap that is gray to fuscous cap but gradually acquires reddish brown tones, a strong farinaceous odor and taste, spiny spores measuring 6-7 x 4.5 x 5 microns, and no cystidia. It was recombined from Collybia olympiana A.H. Sm., Contr. Univ. Mich. Herb. 5: 13 (1941) [1940], whose type was found in Washington State on a decayed fleshy fungus. The combination was tentative however and Smith considered it close to Collybia tylicolor and Collybia erosa, now placed in Sagaranella. As Lennox says, "This apparently very rare and very distinct species is difficult to place in any of the collybioid groups." Lennox studied two paratypes, a Smith collection from Washington and another from Ontario. She noted Smith had remarked that "the Ontario specimens were old when collected, and the dark reddish brown colors caused me to place them tentatively near Collybia nitellina". She went on to say, "this resemblance is still quite evident in those same specimens in the dried condition. It was this rather striking resemblance as well as the lack of a more suitable taxonomic position, that has prompted me to place this species tentatively in the genus Rhodocybe. It, nonetheless, is strikingly different from the other species of the genus in the ornamentation of its spores, and according to Smith the spore print is white." At least in the dried condition, the basidia are not carminophilous (siderophilic) like those of Saganarella tylicolor. |See also SIMILAR section of Entocybe trachyospora and Clitopilus nuciolens.
