Summary:
Features include 1) hygrophanous, brown, striate cap which may be white flecked when young, 2) adnate to slightly decurrent gills, 3) a thin stem that is cap colored or paler, 4) the absence of a well-defined ring, 5) growth on the ground, sticks or woody debris, and 6) a brown spore deposit. |Tubaria furfuracea group includes Tubaria furfuracea and Tubaria hiemalis. DNA sequencing provides evidence that appears to suggest they are closely related but not synonymous (D. Miller, pers. comm.). |Morphologically they have been separated primarily on the combination of cheilocystidia shape, veil development, and season of occurrence. |Veil development is said to be weaker in T. hiemalis, and T. furfuracea is said to be more likely to leave veil remnants on the cap margin. Moser(1) differentiates taxa that include Tubaria hiemalis Romagnesi ex Bon from taxa that include T. furfuracea (Pers. ex Fr.) Gillet by "Cap with distinct, white veil flakes or covered by white veil" in the latter and "Veil ochre, brownish or very weak" in the former. |Breitenbach(4) also show the two taxa separately, but comment about Tubaria hiemalis, "This common species belongs to the complex around Tubaria furfuracea [italicized] (No. 463). This complex includes one to several species, depending on the author. The differentiating characters are primarily the shape of the cystidia, the shape of the spores and season of occurrence. Acc. BON (1992), T. furfuracea [italicized] differs from T. hiemalis [italicized] by occurring on soil in summer to early fall and by having +/- cylindrical, not capitate, cystidia; However, when one examines various collections from this complex, one repeatedly finds intermediates in the shape of the cystidia: in one collection the cylindrical ones predominate and in another the capitate ones do. Thus it is often difficult or impossible to separate the two species unambiguously." Breitenbach(4) describe the cheilocystidia of T. furfuracea as cylindric to somewhat lageniform or flexuous, occasionally subcapitate, 23-53 x 5-9 microns, and of T. hiemalis as cylindric-capitate, 25-60 microns long, head up to 12 microns across. Their descriptions of the spores are not very different (see below). |As the species epithet of Tubaria hiemalis implies (''pertaining to winter'') T. hiemalis is thought by some to be more likely in the winter months and T. furfuracea in the summer months. Collection dates at the University of Washington and the University of British Columbia prior to 2013 do not provide clear differentiation between the two labeled species which both have collection dates from October, November, February, March, and April. Collections made from May, June, August, and September were named T. furfuracea. There is a December collection date for T. hiemalis and a January collection date for T. furfuracea. |The online Species Fungorum, accessed December 16, 2015, and June 5, 2019 gave T. hiemalis Romagnesi ex Bon as a synonym of T. furfuracea (Pers.) Gillet. MycoBank, accessed on the latter date, listed them separately. |The descriptions are derived from authors describing Tubaria furfuracea.

Cap:
1-3(4)cm across, convex becoming flat or slightly depressed; hygrophanous, brown to reddish brown, cinnamon brown, or tan when moist, fading to buff, pinkish buff, or whitish when it dries (often fading in center first); "smooth to finely fibrillose or often with minute whitish flecks and patches (veil remnants)", not viscid, margin striate when moist, (Arora), may have small umbo, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen)

Flesh:
thin; brownish, (Arora), to pale pinkish brown

Gills:
adnate to slightly decurrent, close; "pale tawny to cinnamon or brown", (Arora), cream when young, later ocher brown to reddish brown, (Breitenbach)

Stem:
2-6cm x 0.1-0.4cm, equal or slightly wider in lower part, fragile; colored more or less as cap or paler; "sometimes with whitish flecks", fibrillose, base usually with whitish mycelium, (Arora), barely evident superior ring zone (Buczacki)

Veil:
whitish, fibrillose, evanescent [disappearing], (Arora)

Odor:
not distinctive (Phillips), faintly spicy, sourish, (Breitenbach)

Taste:
not distinctive (Phillips), mild (Breitenbach), faint, mushroomy or radish-like (Buczacki)

Microscopic spores:
spores 6-9 x 4-6 microns, elliptic, smooth, (Arora), spores 6.5-9.3 x 4-5.5 microns, elliptic to cylindric-elliptic, smooth, light yellow; basidia 4-spored, 22-26 x 6-8.5 microns, clavate to cylindric-clavate, with basal clamp connection; pleurocystidia not seen, cheilocystidia 23-53 x 5-9 microns, cylindric to somewhat lageniform or flexuous, occasionally subcapitate; clamps mentioned for cap cuticle and basidia, (Breitenbach(4) for T. furfuracea - for T. hiemalis they say the cheilocystidia are cylindric-capitate, 25-60 microns long, head up to 12 microns across and the spores are 6.5-10 x 4.5-5.3 microns, elliptic to cylindric-elliptic)

Spore deposit:
ocher-brown to pale ocher (Arora), yellow-brown (Miller), ocher-brown (Breitenbach, although illustration of the spore print colour looks cinnamon)

Notes:
Tubaria furfuracea and Tubaria hiemalis fall into two clades, each containing collections from BC, WA, CA, and ON, (D. Miller, pers. comm.). Murrill reported Tubaria furfuracea from WA and CA. Schalkwijk-Barendsen reported T. furfuracea from BC. There are collections labeled Tubaria furfuracea from BC at the Pacific Forestry Centre and the University of British Columbia. The University of Washington has collections labeled Tubaria furfuracea from WA, OR, ID, AK, CA, and MI. Breitenbach(4) give the distribution of T. furfuracea as North America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa. There are BC collections labeled Tubaria hiemalis by three different collectors at the University of British Columbia and a WA collection labeled T. hiemalis at the University of Washington.

EDIBILITY

unknown (Arora)