Major Groups > Gilled Mushrooms > Pale-Spored > Omphalinoid > Chrysomphalina chrysophylla

MushroomExpert.Com

Chrysomphalina chrysophylla

[ Basidiomycetes > Agaricales > Tricholomataceae > Chrysomphalina . . . ]

by Michael Kuo

This widely distributed but infrequently reported decomposer of conifer wood features yellow gills that run down the stem, and a finely scaly brown cap. It looks for all the world like Gerronema strombodes, which decomposes the wood of hardwoods and is limited to eastern North America--but the two species are not even closely related. Recent DNA studies have supported the idea that Chrysomphalina chrysophylla is fairly closely related to the waxy caps (despite sharing virtually none of the features which used to define them), many branches away from Gerronema strombodes on the evolutionary tree.

Chrysomphalina chrysophylla var. salmonispora features pinkish to salmon hues on the gills and stem.

Gerronema chrysophylla and Omphalina chrysophylla are synonyms.

Description:

Ecology: Saprobic on the well decayed wood of conifers; growing alone, scattered, or, more often, gregariously; summer and fall; fairly widely distributed in North America, but not common.

Cap: 1-4 cm across; planoconvex with an inrolled margin at first, becoming nearly flat and centrally depressed; moist when fresh; very finely scurfy or scaly with gray-brown to yellow-brown fibers and scales; yellowish underneath the brown material; fading.

Gills: Running down the stem; distant or nearly so; yellow to pale yellow or orangish yellow.

Stem: 2-4 cm long and up to 3 mm thick; more or less equal; bald or very minutely hairy; yellow to orange-yellow or nearly whitish.

Flesh: Thin; orangish to yellowish.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Spore Print: Yellowish.

Microscopic Features: Spores 8.5-15.5 x 4.5-7 µ; smooth; elliptical; inamyloid. Basidia mostly 4-spored. Cystidia absent. Clamp connections absent. Tissues in cap and stem not sarcodimitic.


REFERENCES: (Fries, 1821) Clemençon, 1982. (Bigelow, 1970; Phillips, 1991/2005; Norvell, Redhead & Ammirati, 1994; Barron, 1999; Miller & Miller, 2006.)


This site contains no information about the edibility or toxicity of mushrooms.


 

Chrysomphalina chrysophylla

Chrysomphalina chrysophylla



© MushroomExpert.Com




Cite this page as:

Kuo, M. (2010, November). Chrysomphalina chrysophylla. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/chrysomphalina_chrysophylla.html