Summary:
Features include 1) a viscid cap that is dull brown to purple-brown, grayish brown, reddish brown or when old yellowish brown, 2) close, broad gills that are pale gray becoming purple-gray to dull purple-brown to nearly black, 3) a white stem that is silky smooth above the membranous ring and with cottony scales below the ring, 4) growth on the ground or rotting wood under conifers, and 5) a purple-brown to purple-black spore deposit.

Cap:
4-12(15)cm across, obtuse to convex, becoming broadly umbonate or flat; dull brown to dingy purple-brown, grayish brown, grayish purple, or smoky reddish brown, often fading when old to yellow-brown or grayish tan; "viscid or slimy when moist, smooth or with a few whitish scales (veil remnants) near margin", (Arora), 3.2-7cm across, convex +/- obtusely umbonate, margin sometimes remaining incurved for some time; "fawn, cinnamon or sienna cinnamon, soon paler buff or saffron buff at centre", sometimes vinaceous fawn in outer part or +/- entirely fulvous; viscid, margin with hanging white veil scales when young and sometimes also with a few appressed, scattered, white veil scales just inside margin, "occasionally very slightly striate at margin", (Watling)

Flesh:
thick, soft; white, (Arora), in cap whitish, colored as cap under cap skin, often +/- buff in center above top of stem, whitish in upper stem cortex, pale buff or cream in lower stem cortex, hollow center +/- buff or cream, (Watling)

Gills:
"typically adnate but sometimes seceding, broad, close"; "pale gray becoming purple-gray to dull purple-brown to nearly black", (Arora), "adnate-decurrent or adnate with tooth, sometimes emarginate", fairly crowded; at first pale mouse-gray then tinged vinaceous-gray or smoke-gray, finally clay-buff with vinaceous-gray tinge to fairly deep vinaceous-gray, edges paler at first then +/- colored as faces, (Watling)

Stem:
5-15cm x 0.5-2.5cm, "more or less equal, silky-smooth above the ring, sheathed with soft, dry, delicate, cottony white scales below, at least when young", "base often with white mycelial threads", (Arora), 7.2-15cm x 0.6-1.5cm, large specimens up to 2.5cm at base, more or less equal or with widened base to clavate-bulbous, hollow; white in upper part, yellowish cream or deep cream or pale saffron or pale buff in lower part; at top striate from gills and minutely white floccose-scaly, below ring with rather thick, upturned, silky-fibrillose or floccose, white scales when fresh then +/- smooth, base white or whitish-tomentose sometimes with a few white mycelial strands, (Watling)

Veil:
membranous, white, forming a persistent, flaring or skirt-like, superior ring that is darkened by falling spores, (Arora), margin appendiculate with veil scales, and sometimes scattered, white veil scales just inside margin, "ring membranous but thin, striate above, smooth beneath, white becoming discolored by spores", (Watling)

Odor:
a little unpleasant (Phillips), none or acidulous fungus-like when cut (Watling)

Taste:
rather disagreeable (Arora)

Microscopic spores:
spores 10-14 x 5.5-7 microns, elliptic, smooth, chrysocystidia present on gills, (Arora), 11-13 x 6-6.5 microns, elliptic slightly almond-shaped with broad central germ pore; basidia 4-spored, 28-32 x 9-11 microns; pleurocystidia +/- lageniform, often broadly so, sometimes +/- utriform, more rarely acute (chrysocystidia), 40-64 x (10)12-20 microns, apex 8-12 microns wide, sometimes with mucilaginous cap that may be colorless or yellowish in water, cheilocystidia 28-50 x 6-14 microns, cylindric-clavate to slightly lageniform or utriform, apex 5-14 microns wide when lageniform or utriform, (Watling)

Spore deposit:
purple-brown to purple-black (Arora), dark fuscous-black (Watling)

Notes:
The University of British Columbia has collections from BC and OR. The University of Washington has collections from WA and AK. Boise State University has collections from ID. Arora(1) noted that it has been reported from norther CA. The distribution is "northern North America" (Phillips).

EDIBILITY

unknown (Arora)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Naematoloma hornemannii (Fr.: Fr.) Singer