Hygrophorus pudorinus

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Ecology: Mycorrhizal with spruces and other conifers; growing scattered to gregariously; late summer and fall; fairly widely distributed in western North America from Colorado to the West Coast, and found in central and northeastern North America from about the Great Lakes northward. The illustrated and described collections are from Engelmann spruce forests in Colorado, and from Qu&#233bec.

Cap: 3-10 cm; convex, becoming broadly convex or broadly bell-shaped; sticky when fresh, but soon dry and shiny; bald or, in age, developing fine scales and cracks; pale pinkish orange (very similar to the color of Albatrellus confluens) or pinkish tan; the margin at first inrolled and cottony.

Gills: Broadly attached to the stem or beginning to run down it; close or nearly distant; white, unchanging or becoming yellowish to pinkish with age; short-gills frequent.

Stem: 3-8 cm long; up to 3 cm thick; more or less equal above a tapered base that is often underground; dry; finely dotted with tiny white tufts of fibers toward the apex that turn reddish brown when specimens are dried (illustrated); whitish, often turning yellowish where handled or near the base; thick.

Flesh: Firm; white, or slightly pinkish to yellowish or orangish in the stem base; unchanging or turning slightly yellowish.

Odor and Taste: Odor often soapy and fragrant or slightly unpleasant--or not distinctive; taste mild.

Spore Print: White.

Chemical Reactions: KOH golden orange on cap and stem surface.

Microscopic Features: Spores 7-10 x 4-5.5 ; smooth; ellipsoid; hyaline in KOH; inamyloid. Basidia 4-sterigmate; to about 55 long. Hymenial cystidia absent. Lamellar trama divergent. Pileipellis an ixocutis or an ixotrichoderm.

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