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Species Information
Summary: {See also Tricholoma with coal tar odor Table.} |Tricholoma inamoenum is characterized by off-white to pale tan color and a coal tar odor. Other features are the dry, bald cap, the adnate to sinuate, subdistant to distant gills, the dry, silky-fibrillose stem, the mild to disagreeable taste, and growth under conifers. |Tricholoma inamoenum ?= Tricholoma platyphyllum according to Arora, and = T. platyphyllum according to Bessette(2), but some list separately (T. platyphyllum having more distant gills). |Breitenbach et al. remark that T. inamoenum, "is characterized primarily by its unpleasant odor like cooking gas, its conspicuously distant lamellae, and its whitish-ocherish frbs., as well as by its occurrence in montane spruce forests" (at least in Switzerland). Their description is for T. inamoenum (Fr.) Quel.
A collection is noted for OR in Ammirati(11). It was described by Shanks(2) as common in the northern coastal forests of CA. There are collections from BC and YT at the University of British Columbia. The University of Washington has collections from WA, OR, AK, MT, and WY. It has been reported from ID by Andrew Parker, pers. comm. Bessette(5) show photographs from ID and WV. Many of these records may include Tricholoma platyphyllum. There is DNA evidence for this species in boreal BC, but it remains to be confirmed from further south, (D. Miller, pers. comm.).
Cap: 1.5-3(4.5)cm across, convex to broadly convex; "cream to pale tan, paler at margin"; dry, bald, (Shanks), 4-6cm across, hemispheric becoming convex to flat, slightly umbonate, margin acute; dingy whitish to beige, also light brownish; smooth, dull, finely appressed-tomentose, (Breitenbach), 3-6cm across, convex, becoming broadly convex to nearly flat, often with low broad umbo; "pale buff to whitish, often developing grayish to brownish tints on disc"; smooth, dull, (Bessette(2)), convex or conic to start with, then flattening, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen)
Flesh: white (Shanks), firm, +/- thin; whitish, (Breitenbach), white (Bessette(2))
Gills: adnate when young, sinuate when mature, subdistant to distant, 0.3-0.5cm broad, thin; "cream to very pale tan", (Shanks), notched, distant, 33-35 reaching stem, broad, 3-5 subgills between neighboring gills; "white, sometimes with a yellowish gleam"; edges smooth, (Breitenbach), notched, subdistant to distant, broad, often with cross-veins, 3-4 tiers of subgills; white, (Bessette(2)), adnexed, distant, broad, with veins connecting the gills or sometimes forked, many intermediates; white, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen)
Stem: 4-8cm x 0.4-0.5cm, equal or widening downwards to swollen base, solid; pallid to cream; dry, silky-fibrillose, (Shanks), 5-7cm x 0.8-1cm, ventricose-fusiform when young but later cylindric and +/- rooting, corticate, solid; white-yellowish, brownish towards base; longitudinally fibrillose, (Breitenbach), 4-9cm x 0.4-1cm, nearly equal or widening slightly downward to swollen base that often tapers abruptly in lower part; white to cream, brownish near base; dry, pruinose at top, (Bessette(2)), sometimes twisted, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen)
Odor: like coal-tar (like T. sulphureum), (Shanks), unpleasantly like cooking gas, (Breitenbach), "pungent, disagreeable, like coal tar", (Bessette(2)), unpleasant chemical odor (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), (Lincoff(1) says not unpleasant smell of acetylene and in another place coal gas but also says not known in North America), "pungent and disagreeable like coal tar or with a heavy floral scent like that of hyacinths or paperwhites", (Bessette(5)), odor is due to a mixture of benzaldehyde, 1-octen-2-ol, and phenylacetaldehyde, (Watson)
Taste: like motor oil (Shanks), mild, cabbage-like, (Breitenbach), disagreeable (Bessette(2)), of raw meal (Schalkwijk-Barendsen)
Microscopic spores: spores 9.6-14.4 x 5.3-7.7 microns, almond-shaped, fusoid-ventricose, or broadly elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, occasional spores dextrinoid; basidia 4-spored, 41-53 x 8.2-12 microns, clavate; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia absent, some irregular basidioles present; clamp connections present at the base of basidia, (Shanks), spores 8.6-10.6 x 5.7-7.5 microns, elliptic, smooth, iodine-negative, with droplets; basidia 4-spored, 38-52 x 10-12 microns, pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia not seen; clamps on basidia but not seen on cap cuticle, (Breitenbach), spores 10-12 x 6.5-8 microns, elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, (Bessette(2))
Spore deposit: white (Bessette(2), Schalkwijk-Barendsen)
Habitat / Range
single to gregarious with conifers, particularly Picea (spruce), (Shanks), single to grouped on calcareous subsoil in spruce forests, (Breitenbach for Europe), single or scattered on ground under conifers, August to November, (Bessette(2)), "In the Pacific Northwest I found it in the mountains, but also in boreal mixed forest and aspen parkland growing in moss under spruce in boggy areas", (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), summer and fall (Miller)
Similar Species
Tricholoma platyphyllum has more distant gills (if in fact it is a separate species: note that the Bessette(2) descriptions and perhaps other descriptions above may include the concept of T. platyphyllum). Tricholoma ''sulphureum'' differs only in being yellow instead of pallid ivory. Tricholoma bufonium also differs in colour. Tricholoma sulphurescens and Tricholoma odorum differ in odor; in addition, T. sulphurescens stains yellow or brown when handled or old and T. odorum has some yellow or yellowish color.
