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Miscellaneous white spored Wood-inhabiting Mushrooms

All are saprophytic (or parasitic!) on conifers (or not fussy) unless otherwise specified.

Pleurotus/Panus are large mushrooms on wood that usually have eccentric stems/tough fruitbodies, and therefore are found on the Oddballs page, but they might appear normal and be looked for on this page. Neolentinus/Lentinellus have serrated gill edges, but that is easy to overlook.
Gymnopus and other collybioid fungi with tough stems can sometimes be found on wood. Consider them too.
Also consider two small (<5cm) rare, whitish, decurrent Clitocybes that grow on wood. (C. americana and C. truncicola)

Key:

Armillaria - the honey mushrooms, popular edibles, but there are now a half a dozen local species that have been acknowledged in the last decades and some people react negatively to some of them (with some people thinking that Armillarias growing on hardwoods are more likely to upset your stomach, but guidebooks in Europe say the opposite, so who knows. Perhaps they are all potentially poisonous). The previously unknown different species have led to this mushroom getting the nickname "The mushroom of a thousand faces", as there may or may not be a lot of scales on the cap and stem, a well developed ring or just a slight partial veil, and they can range from small to quite large. But they will always be larger than most other mushrooms in this category, almost always have some kind of a partial veil and a stem that looks like it was stuffed with a cottony pith. They grow on wood (sometimes buried and appearing from the ground) sometimes in large clusters and are in the Marasmiineae sub-order. A very common parasite. Usually 5-10cm except for the larger species. Many species have glow in the dark mycelium (bioluminescence).

A. mellea - pale, stocky, fall, in large clusters, the only species without a bulbous stem base. Southern species. Hardwoods?

A. nabsnona - slender, bright orange-brown cap with few cap scales, spring or fall, prefers alder.

A. altimontana - high elevation Rocky Mountain species.

A. solidipes (ostoyae) - stout, dark or pale brown, much scalier. (usually conifers), usually with the most developed ring of any species.

A. sinapina - like A. solidipes, but more often with golden yellow universal veil remnants.

A. gallica - somewhat scaly, hardwoods.

A. cepistipes - somewhat scaly. The only one noted to sometimes have marginate gills. Hardwoods.

The cottony pith inside the stem of Armillaria spp.

 

Tricholomopsis - very beautiful colourful mushrooms on wood. Probably in the Pleurotineae, which is normally filled with "oyster" species. Usually around 5cm.

T. rutilans - pink with black scales (both cap and stem), bright yellow gills. Resembles Gymnopilus luteofolius. May get >5cm and somewhat stocky.

T. 'flammula' - pink and black scales on cap only, stem is yellow. More slender. WA/ID border.

T. decora group - bright yellow everywhere with black scales. The rest of the yellow species don't have black scales.

T. flavissima - gill edges are yellow marginate, weak partial veil.

T. flavescens (thompsoniana) - flesh stains yellow when handled. Balder cap than the others.

T. bella - gills and stem stain brown when handled.

T. fulvescens - stem stains yellow-brown, weak partial veil.

T. sulfureoides - a rather nondescript species (although still a beautiful yellow). Also a weak partial veil.

 

Flammulina - this is what Enoki looks like in the wild, and the amazing morphologic change into a all-white, needle-thin, long stemmed mushroom with a pinprick head is an astonishing example of how environmental conditions can change a species. They are on the small side (<5 cm), with a dark velvety stem when mature (and difficult to ID before then). Somewhat viscid orange-brown cap that is not hygrophanous, growing on hardwood. Not uncommon year round. Related to Armillaria (above) and Strobilurus. Japanese growers (who are usually heavy consumers) of this mushroom in Nagano were found to have much lower cancer rates than those in other Japanese provinces.

F. filiformis - our most common species (and the real cultivated Enoki species) is this, not F. velutipes as long thought.

F. velutipes - may occur here as well

F. lupinicola - from CA on lupine, also in southern OR.

F. populicola - usually growing on cottonwood/aspen.

F. rossica - perhaps paler.

 

Other miscellaneous mushrooms - usually adnexed to adnate gills.

Hypsizygus tessellatus - the store bought "elm oyster". Tan cap with water spots. May be farinaceous. Hardwood. Not hygrophanous. Related to Lyophyllum.

Clitocybula familia - tan (to grey), very clustered. Resembles Mycena overholtsii. Usually <2.5cm. Marasmioid clade. Amyloid spores (darkening in iodine).

Clitocybula abundans/lacerata - grey, sometimes streaked. Less clustered, slightly umbilicate. ~5cm. Gills may be decurrent.

Baeospora myriadophylla - found on logs, crowded purple gills keep their colour longer than the rest of this purple-tinged mushroom. Marasmioid clade.

Megacollybia fallax (platyphylla grp) - large (but <10cm) grey-brown cap sometimes with radial streaks that split, gill edges that might get eroded in age, and some white rhizomorphs at the stem base. Not hygrophanous. Marasmioid clade.

Gymnopus (Collybia) bakerensis - <4cm. Mostly white with a pinkish brown stem base, growing on wood. Less crowded gills than Ossicaulis. Not hygrophanous.

Callistosporium graminicolor ('luteoolivaceum') - a kind of greasy olive yellow-brown. Not hygrophanous. Hard to ID, especially when the olive colour has faded or when growing from the ground from buried wood. In the Tricholomatoid clade. 5cm or less.

Usually decurrent gills.

Ossicaulis 'lignatilis' - pure white, crowded gills of variable attachment. Stem sometimes off centre. Resembles Clitocybe truncicola and Collybia bakerensis, but is purer white in age with a stronger fungal-farinaceous odor. Hardwoods. Not hygrophanous. Related to Lyophyllum.

Gerronema atrialbum (Clitocybula atrialba) - distinguished from Clitocybe by its long thin stem, thin flesh and dark cap and stem. On hidden hardwood but appearing terrestrial. Marasmioid clade. <10cm. Not hygrophanous.

Pseudoarmillariella ectypoides - Strongly decurrent, yellowish gills. Not hygrophanous. Hygrophoraceae. It does somewhat resembles the smaller Chrysomphalina chrysophylla, which is more colourful and less strongly decurrent. 5cm or less. Amyloid spores.

Pseudoclitocybe cyathiformis - resembles Arrhenia, Gerronema atrialbum and Ampulloclitocybe with its dark cap and stem and is also found on buried wood growing from the ground, but is not usually as dark or tall or thin-fleshed. Hygrophanous. Tricholomatoid clade. Around 5cm. Amyloid spores.

Mycena overholtsii - marasmioid stature, arcuate gills and fuzzy stem. Snowmelt. Resembles Clitocybula.

 

Again, as this is a miscellaneous page, there is no specialized literature available for this artificial group.

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