Summary:
Features include small size, a buff to brown dry cap, somewhat crowded gills, growth on Sitka spruce cones, spores that are small, smooth, and inamyloid, and thick-walled pleurocystidia capped with an apical resinous mass.

Cap:
0.3-1.5cm across, convex, at times somewhat umbonate, becoming flat-convex; somewhat hygrophanous to not hygrophanous, deep yellow brown to dark yellow brown or vinaceous buff, hazel or grayish sepia; dry, smooth to rugulose [finely wrinkled], margin striate when old, (Redhead(1)), 0.6-1.6cm across, convex or flat-convex; grayish yellow or pale yellowish gray overall when young, when old disc brownish gray, margin orange gray to buff, or often buff overall when mature (pinkish tones absent); bald, smooth or subrugulose [somewhat wrinkled], dull, translucent-striate, (Desjardin), nearly white if heavily shaded, otherwise tan to medium or dark gray-brown, margins often paler, (Lennox)

Flesh:
fleshy, firm; white, (Redhead(1)), thin; white, (Desjardin)

Gills:
adnate to adnexed, crowded to subcrowded, 2 to 3 tiers of subgills, moderately broad; white, (Redhead(1)), adnexed, close or subdistant, 2-3 tiers of subgills, moderately broad; white, (Desjardin), "narrowly adnate, sinuate, to almost free", (Lennox)

Stem:
1-5cm x 0.1-0.2cm, equal, "somewhat cartilaginous to horny", stuffed, becoming hollow when old, root-like pseudorhiza "usually present, up to 6cm long, covered with a dense ochreous floccose mycelium"; stem white at top, cinnamon to umber in lower part; pruinose to nearly bald, (Redhead(1)), 2.5-5cm x 0.075-0.15cm, equal, round in cross-section, with short root-like pseudorhiza; top white, mid-part grayish orange, base brownish orange; top pruinose, mid-part pubescent [downy], base tomentose, covered with downy, orange or ochraceous mycelium, (Desjardin), orange-brown over lower parts with a white apex, darkening when old, (Siegel)

Odor:
not distinctive (Desjardin), none or slightly of radish (Lennox)

Taste:
not distinctive (Desjardin)

Microscopic spores:
spores 4-6 x 2-3 microns, elliptic to cylindric, thin-walled, smooth, colorless, inamyloid; basidia 4-spored, 15-20 x 3-5 microns, clavate, simple-septate; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia rare to abundant, 35-45 x 6-12 microns, "obtusely ventricose to fusoid-ventricose or rarely capitate when walls excessively thickened", colorless, "capped by a massive resinous and granular excretion", "walls thin to thick, up to 2-3.5 microns thick, often thinning apically"; pileocystidia scattered, infrequent, 20-30 x 9-10 microns, tapering in upper part to just below a capitate top, colorless, smooth; caulocystidia abundant, similar to pileocystidia, 40-95 x 10-13 microns, sometimes somewhat conic, mostly capitate, occasionally aggregated, (Redhead(1)), no clamp connections on cap surface hyphae, (Lennox), spores 4.2-6 x 2.4-3 microns, elliptic or subamygdaliform [somewhat almond-shaped]; basidia 4-spored, 16.8-22.8 x 3-4.5 microns, clavate; pleurocystidia abundant, 33-45 x 9.6-14.4 microns, "obclavate or fusoid-ventricose, rarely subcapitate, capped with a large, globose, granular and resinous mass", walls 1-3 microns thick, colorless to pale yellow, and inamyloid, cheilocystidia abundant, 32.4-42 x 4.8-8.1 microns, cylindric, "subcapitulate or narrowly fusoid-ventricose, subcapitate or not, lacking an apical resinous mass", walls up to 1 micron thick, colorless or pale yellow, and inamyloid; cap cuticle hymeniform, cells 12-30 x 6-18 microns, broadly clavate, spheropedunculate, pyriform, or irregular in shape, with scattered pileocystidia 24-42 x 5.4-10.8 microns, "ventricose-rostrate or cylindric-subcapitate", colorless or pale yellow, thin-walled; caulocystidia "abundant, scattered or clustered", 32-120 x 7.2-18 microns, "ventricose-rostrate with a capitate rostrum or narrowly conic-capitate", walls up to 2 microns thick, colorless or pale ochraceous, inamyloid, (Desjardin)

Spore deposit:
white (Redhead(1))

Notes:
Strobilurus occidentalis has been reported from at least BC, AB, AK, CA, and CO, (Redhead(1)). There are collections from western WA on spruce cones and a collection from western OR on Sitka spruce cones at the University of Washington.

EDIBILITY