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Pholiota multifolia

by Michael Kuo, 2 August 2024

Here is an odd North American mushroom that has trouble fitting in. It is found on the deadwood of hardwoods, and its defining features include a yellow to orangish brown cap, crowded yellow gills that bruise and discolor reddish brown, flesh with a bitter taste, a cinnamon brown spore print, smooth spores, and abundant cheilocystidia.

Aside from its smooth spores, Pholiota multifolia seems a good match for the genus Gymnopilus, especially since it tastes bitter like many species in that genus. Thus Murrill (1917) called it Gymnopilus multifolius. Smith & Hesler (1968), using a fairly expansive concept for the genus Pholiota, called it Pholiota multifolia.

Horak (1986) placed this mushroom in Pleuroflammula, but presented no justification for the transfer from Pholiota to Pleuroflammula, other than citing study of (but no data from) the type collection—and the author's transfer flies in the face of his own concept of the genus Pleuroflammula as virtually inseparable, in the field, from Crepidotus, since "[b]oth genera form rather small conchate fruit-bodies which are attached either laterally-dorsally or by an eccentric or lateral and inconspicuous stipe to organic debris" (Horak 1978). Pholiota multifolia may turn out not to be a Pholiota once considered by an in-depth, contemporary, DNA-based analysis—but is decidedly not crepidotoid, since it features a robust, central stem, along with a thick-fleshed cap.

Description:

Ecology: Presumably saprobic; growing alone or, more commonly, in clusters on the deadwood of hardwoods; causing a white rot; summer and fall; originally described from St. Louis (Peck 1905); documented from the Great Lakes region, the Appalachians, the Midwest, the southern Rocky Mountains, and Washington. The illustrated and described collection is from Illinois.

Cap: 3–6 cm; convex, becoming broadly convex or nearly flat; dry; bald, becoming very finely appressed-fibrillose or scaly with age; orangish yellow to brownish orange, often with a paler margin; the margin not lined.

Gills: Broadly attached to the stem; crowded; short-gills frequent; bright yellow, spotting and bruising rusty brownish; edges often whitish.

Stem: 2.5–5.5 cm long; up to 0.5 cm thick; equal, with a slight basal bulb; dry; fibrillose with rusty fibrils over an orangish yellow surface; with or without an obscure ring zone; basal mycelium white.

Flesh: Yellow to orangish-brownish (especially in the stem); not changing when sliced.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive; taste bitter.

Chemical Reactions: KOH deep red, then black on cap surface.

Spore Print: Cinnamon brown.

Microscopic Features: Tissues leach yellow pigment when mounted in KOH or Melzer's Reagent. Spores 6–8 x 4–5 µm; subellipsoid; without a pore; smooth; orangish brown in KOH; brownish-walled in Melzer's. Basidia 23–25 x 4–5 µm; subclavate; 4-sterigmate; often orangish brown in KOH. Pleurocystidia not found. Cheilocystidia 28–50 x 3–6 µm; filiform-cylindric, with capitate, clavate, or merely rounded apices; smooth; thin-walled; hyaline to yellow in KOH. Pileipellis a cutis; elements 3–10 µm; wide, smooth, yellowish in KOH. Clamp connections present.

REFERENCES: (C. H. Peck, 1905) A. H. Smith & L. R. Hesler, 1968. (Murrill, 1917; Smith & Hesler, 1968; Horak, 1978; Smith, Smith & Weber, 1979; Horak, 1986; Phillips, 1991/2005; Baroni, 2017.) Herb. Kuo 09121203, 07312401.

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

KOH

Spore print

KOH mount

Spores

Cheilocystidia

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Cite this page as:

Kuo, M. (2024, August). Pholiota multifolia. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/pholiota_multifolia.html