Ampulloclitocybe avellaneialba

Description

Ampulloclitocybe avellaneialba is a distinctive clitocyboid mushroom from the Pacific Northwest. It has a dark brown cap that contrasts nicely with its decurrent white gills, it grows from the wood or woody debris of conifers, and, under the microscope, it features very funky, swollen-fusiform spores.

Ampulloclitocybe clavipes is similar, but grows on the ground, is usually paler, and features very different, ellipsoid spores.

Mushroom Identification

1. Ecology

   Saprobic; growing alone or gregariously on the well-decayed deadwood of conifers; sometimes growing from buried deadwood and appearing terrestrial; fall and early winter; Pacific Northwest, northern California, and the northern Rocky Mountains.

2. Cap

   2–10 cm; at first flat with a slightly incurved margin, becoming centrally depressed and, eventually, vase-shaped, with an uplifted margin; very finely hairy, or nearly bald; moist; dark brown.

3. Gills

   Running deeply down the stem; close; short-gills frequent; whitish.

4. Stem

   4–10 cm long; 1–2 cm thick; more or less equal; bald or minutely hairy; pale brown.

5. Flesh

   Whitish; unchanging when sliced.

6. Odor and Taste

   Not distinctive.

7. Spore Print

   Reported by Bigelow (1982a) as white.

8. Microscopic Details

   Spores 6–10 x 3–4.5 µm; widely fusiform-limoniform; smooth; thick-walled; hyaline in KOH; inamyloid. Hymenial cystidia not found. Pileipellis a cutis with areas of ascending hyphae; brown in KOH; elements 5–7.5 µm wide, smooth, clamped at septa.

Synonyms

1. Clitocybe avellaneialba Murrill, Mycologia 5 (4): 207 (1913)

2. Clitocybe avellaneoalba Murrill, Mycologia 5 (4): 207 (1913)

3. Clavicybe avellaneoalba (Murrill) Harmaja, Karstenia 42 (2): 42 (2002)

Photo sources:

Photo 1 - Author: chloe_and_trevor (CC BY 4.0)

Photo 2 - Author: chloe_and_trevor (CC BY 4.0)

Photo 3 - Author: chloe_and_trevor (CC BY 4.0)