The North American Species of Pholiota

Doubtful Species


Phaeomarasmius alnicola (Murrill) Singer, Schweiz. Zeitschrift fur Plizk. 34: 61. 1956.

Crinipellis alnicola Murrill, North Amer. Fl. 9: 288. 1915.

Pileus 5-8 mm broad, subglobose to convex, rather firm. Surface densely villose, chestnut colored, not becoming glabrous, margin concolorous, involute, strongly inflexed on drying.

Lamellae adnate, rather broad and distant, pallid, the edges finely notched.

Stipe 5-10 mm long, 1-1.5 mm thick, clothed and colored like the pileus, pallid and tomentose at the apex, cylindric, equal, spongy stuffed with a cortex.

Spores 7.7-9.7 x 5.5-7.7 µ, some with a callus, pale honey-brownish. Cheilocystidia polymorphous, 28-52 x 5-10 µ. Hairs of pileus composed "of single members" separated by normal septa with clamp connections, incrusted by a membranous-pigment (from Singer).

On dead alder trunks, near Seattle Wash. W. A. Murrill 561 (N.Y.).

Note: We have not restudied the type for this paper because of the very limited material and when a critical study of Tubaria is made it will be essential to study it again. Obviously the species is similar in many ways to P. erinacea but we exclude it from Pholiota for the present because of the spore color as indicated by Singer. The above account is Murrill's original description with Singer's type study added.


Phaeomarasmius floridanus Singer, Schweiz. Zeitschrift fur Pilzk. 34: 59. 1956.

This is a new name for Murrill's interpretation of Agaricus curcuma.

Pileus 15 mm broad, uniformly dark fulvous, or "convexo- vel acute conico-verrucoso..."; lamellae subdistant to distant, horizontal, broad, nearly free, pale isabelline, edge white and fimbriate; stipe 20 x 2-2.5 mm, squamulose with erect squamules the color of the pileus forming a sheath, apex white pruinose, base thickened; veil pallid, somewhat continuous with the stipe covering. Spores melleous or ferruginous, smooth, ovoid to ellipsoid or subinequilateral-elliptic ("vel subamygdaliformi-ellipsoideis"), wall hardly distinctly double, 6-8 x 4.2-4.5 µ; basidia 24-26 x 5.8 µ; cystidia none; cheilocystidia 61-72 x 5.8-10.1 µ. Clavate, very rarely subcylindric, epicutis of pileus of cells 21-28 x 15-20 µ, with encrusting pigment. On dead wood. Florida Singer F10003 (FLAS). It is under the name Naucoria curcuma in the Florida herbarium.

This is another instance where a study of the type should be postponed until a critical revision of Phaeomarasmius sensu Singer can be made. In the meantime it is obvious that if the species is a Pholiota in our sense it is in stirps Curcuma near P. fagicola but the latter has arcuate gills. In these agarics with small basidiocarps seldom collected in quantity, type material is too valuable to be expended in any but final critical studies.


Phaeomarasmius parvuliformis (Murr.) Singer, Schweitz. Zeitschrift fur Pilzk. 34: 59. 1956.

Galerula parvuliformis Murrill, Proceed. Florida Acad. Sci. 7: 119. 1944.

Pileus 1.3 cm broad, conic to plane, with a prominent conic umbo, surface dry, floccose-scaly, finely striate to umbo, pale rosy isabelline, dark isabelline at center, margin entire, appressed when young; context very thin, pallid; lamellae adnexed, rounded behind, ventricose, inserted, medium distant, entire, soon pale-isabelline; stipe 20 x 1 mm, white, finely floccose, equal.

Spores 8-11 x 5-7.2 µ, smooth, lacking a germ pore, elliptic, occasionally ear-shaped from a slight side projection, smooth, lacking a germ pore, wall thin and not distinctly double (spore not Tubaria-like), brownish to pale honey colored. Basidia 25.5 x 9 µ. Cheilocystidia 30-43 x 10.7-14.5 µ, ventricose, often constricted, or flash-shaped with a broad neck (utriform), hyaline to light brown. Epicutis cellular (granulose?) with pigment incrusted interwoven hyphae forming hypoderm. All hyphae in the type were brown, incrusted, and had clamp connections.

Again, the above description is that of Murrill with Singer's type study for the microscopic features. If the cells of the epicutis disarticulate this species would be close to our P. pseudosiparia. At present it does not seem advisable to transfer G. parvuliformis to Pholiota.


Phaeomarasmius muricatus (Fr.) Singer, in Singer & Digilio, Lilloa 25: 387. 1951.

We have avoided using the name Pholiota muricata for a North American species because of more than one concept extant in Europe for this species at the present time. Singer (1963, p. 597) indicates that Naucoria mexicana is a synonym of it. It is clear to us that much of what has passed under the name Pholiota muricata in North America is the species we recognize under the name Pholiota granulosa (Peck in White). We prefer not to recognize Naucoria mexicana as a Pholiota until a critical revision of "Phaeomarasmius" is made.


Pholiota retiphylla Atkinson, Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc. 57: 356. 1918.

Pileus 1-2.5 cm broad, convex or expanded, lateritious or hazel to vinaceous cinnamon, when very young with indistinct scales, finally with appressed fibrils, margin incurved. Context tinged vinaceous.

Lamellae adnate to slightly emarginate, reddish vinaceous, narrow and narrowed in front, close or crowded, surfaces venose and reticulate.

Stipe 2-3 cm long, 4-8 mm thick, flesh tinged vinaceous, occasionally bulbous, at length equal, fibrillose-striate, hollow, Annulus thin, membranous, delicate, vinaceous.

Spores 5.5-7 x 4-4.5 µ, subovoid, smooth, lacking a germpore. Basidia 20-24 x 5-6 µ, 4-spored. Pleurocystidia none; cheilocystidia 18-22 x 5-6 µ, rare, slightly ventricose-capitate. Gill trama subparallel, hyphae 2-4 µ broad; subhymenium not distinctive. Pileus trama more or less radial; surface bearing a trichodermium of brownish, septate, more or less constricted at the septa, incrusted hyphae. Clamp connections present.

Habit, Habitat, and Distribution: On very rotten, moss-covered log, in woods, leg. Whetzel and Jackson (type, no. 18540), Malloryville moor, Cayuga Lake Basin near Ithaca, New York August 18, 1904.

We do not know if the pileus was hygrophanous beneath the fibrils. The species is in the Phaeomarasmius-Hygrotrama complex, and reminds us very much of Pholiota confragosa.

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