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

Summary:
Features include 1) large size, 2) a dry cap that is blackish violet to grayish violet brown, and densely fibrillose-scaly, 3) sinuate to adnexed, close, gray-brown gills, typically staining blackish on the edges, 4) a thick sometimes abruptly bulbous stem that is brownish with scattered fine scales, darkening to violaceous brown, 5) a farinaceous odor and taste, 6) growth under conifers, 7) a whitish spore deposit, and 8) microscopic characters. Shanks(2) adds also that 9) the texture is hard in the stem and 10) the cap flesh and stem flesh stain rapidly reddish gray and finally grayish brown.

Material was examined from OR (including holotype) and WA (Smith(17)). It was included for CA by Shanks(2). There is a collection for BC at the Pacific Forestry Centre and others at the University of British Columbia. Bessette(5) shows a photograph from ID.

Cap:
5-12(14)cm across, "obtuse and with a slightly incurved margin when young", becoming broadly umbonate or flat, the margin spreading or recurved somewhat when old and often plicate [pleated] or splitting radially; blackish violet from the dense covering of fibrils, ("dark grayish brown" over central part and "benzo brown" along margin, darker when old); dry, covered overall except on margin by minute, recurved, blackish violet scales, (Smith(17)), 4-10cm across, broadly convex to flat, the margin often wavy and uplifted when old; nearly black over disc, grayish violet brown to violet gray at margin, fading to grayish brown overall when old; matted-fibrillose over disc, "appressed-fibrillose to squamulose elsewhere", (Shanks)

Flesh:
thin but rigid and brittle, 0.4-0.5cm thick near stem; sordid brownish gray to nearly "drab-gray", "no color change when cut or bruised but sometimes gradually darkening", in stem tinged pale drab, (Smith(17)), thin; 'whitish at first, rapidly bruising reddish gray and finally sordid grayish brown', in stem staining like cap flesh, "base often with yellow or tan coloration", (Shanks), cap flesh often stains reddish gray when cut (Trudell)

Gills:
sinuate to adnexed, close, 1-2 tiers of subgills, broad, up to about 1cm broad, very brittle; dull cinnamon overcast with gray ("light cinnamon-drab", "light drab" or "wood-brown"), edges usually staining blackish; edges uneven to eroded, (Smith(17)), sinuate, close, 0.8-1.5cm broad, thick, anastomosing in some caps; very pale gray when young, becoming sordid brownish gray when mature, margins discoloring fuscous at times, (Shanks)

Stem:
6-14cm x 1-3cm, equal to widened in upper part or sometimes with abruptly bulbous base, stem solid; pallid at first but soon tinged "benzo brown" and finally quite dark; appressed-fibrillose and "becoming somewhat furfuraceous at times from the broken cuticle", (Smith(17)), 5-10cm x 1.5-4cm, "equal, base abrupt or tapered", solid, tough; whitish to pale violet gray, developing yellowish tan colors toward base or where handled; "dry, dull appressed-fibrillose with some surface fibrils projecting", pruinose at top, (Shanks)

Odor:
very strongly farinaceous (Smith(17)), "strongly rancid farinaceous to mildly farinaceous", (Shanks)

Taste:
slightly to strongly farinaceous, (Smith(17)), farinaceous (Shanks), somewhat bitter (Trudell)

Microscopic spores:
spores 7-9 x 4.5-6 microns, subelliptic to suboval, inamyloid; basidia 4-spored, pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia not differentiated, (Smith), spores 7.2-10 x 4.8-7.2 microns, elliptic to broadly elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, colorless; basidia 4-spored (occasionally 2-spored), 43-56 x 8.6-12 microns, clavate, occasionally mucronate, colorless, some basidioles fuscous near gill margins; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia absent; cap cuticle a cutis, hyphae 4.8-14 microns wide, "forming recurved fascicles, brown, thick-walled and smooth, or with rough brown encrustations"; hyphae of the pseudoparenchymatous hypoderm 9.6-24(50) microns in diameter, inflated to nearly isodiametric, colorless and smooth, or with plaques of dark brown encrustations, thin-walled to thick-walled; clamp connections absent (Shanks)

Spore deposit:
[presumably whitish]