conifer scalycap

The cap is 2–6 centimetres (3⁄4–2+1⁄4 in) broad, hemispheric to convex with a blunt umbo, viscid when moist and brilliant pink‑orange to salmon that fades and blackens with age; the margin is fibrillose, often bearing fleeting veil remnants. The gills are adnexed to adnate, close, yellowish‑brown, the edges paler and fimbriate. The stipe is 4–12 cm long and 4–8 mm thick, cylindrical and flexuous, fibrillose or scaly, often with a cobwebby annulus when young; flesh is orange, staining black on exposure, with a mild odour and bitter taste. The spore print is reddish‑brown to cinnamon. Under the microscope, basidiospores measure 6–6.8–8 by 4–4.4–5 μm, ellipsoid to somewhat ovate in shape, thin‑walled, without a germ pore, pale yellowish‑brown in KOH, and brown in deposit. The basidia are narrowly clavate (club-shaped), 20–28 by 7–8 μm, four‑spored. Pleurocystidia are chrysocystidia—fusiform‑ventricose to clavate with golden inclusions—and measure 42–55 by 12–18 μm; cheilocystidia are narrow, with a long neck and obtuse apex. The pileipellis is an ixocutis of gelatinous hyphae, and clamp connections are present. Though nonpoisonous, the species is regarded as inedible. DNA sequencing may be required to distinguish Pyrrhulomyces astragalinus from P. amariceps.

Pyrrhulomyces astragalinus is saprotrophic on decaying wood, primarily of conifers, occurring on logs and stumps in late stages of decay. Fruiting usually occurs solitary or in small clusters, from late summer through autumn and, in mild coastal climates, into winter. This species is widespread across temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere: in Europe (e.g. Italy, Sweden, Switzerland), in East Asia (provinces of Jilin and Jiangxi in China) and in North America—from Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Idaho eastward to Newfoundland and Maine, southward along the Pacific coast and in high‑elevation conifer forests of the southern Appalachians (North Carolina, Tennessee).

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