Fleshy Fungi of New Brunswick >> Hygrocybe chlorophana var. aurantiaca

Hygrocybe chlorophana var. aurantiaca Bon

Gregarious (3) in leaf litter in a mixed forest of Acer saccharinum, Betula alleghaniensis, B. papyrifera, Abies balsamea and Populus tremuloides, Nepisiguit Protected Natural Area, New Brunswick (16-08-16/04).

Basidiospores forming a white spore print, ellipsoidal, smooth, not amyloid, 6.8-9.5(-10.7) X 4.3-5.9 μm, D/d = 1.25-1.91 (average[30]: 8.2 X 5.0 μm, D/d = 1.63). Pileipellis a thick ixotrichodermium. Stipipellis a simple cutis but with a slightly gelatinous surface no more than 1 cell deep. Lamellar trama parallel.

Recognized by its viscid pileus, moist but not truly viscid stipe and deeply adnexed lamellae. All parts of this mushroom are yellow to orange-yellow. It appears to be common in eastern Canada. Mycoquebec.org provides 38 photos of Quebec collections and Foray Newfoundland and Labrador illustrates 5 collections on Flickr. Collection 16-08-16/04 is a good match for European concepts of this species, as are the reports from Newfoundland and Quebec. The form with a decidedly orange pileus as seen in this collection is referable to H. chlorophana var. aurantiaca

In their monograph North American Species of Hygrophorus (Univ. of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1963) Hesler and Smith state that the pileipellis of the material they had examined was composed of a thin zone of gelatinous, repent hyphae rather than the rather thick loosely interwoven layer as illustrated here. In addition they found clamp connections to be rare on the hyphae of the pileipellis while they are abundant in ours. In fact, our material is a better fit to Hesler & Smith's description of H. flavescens, suggesting that this is the name we should be using here. However, Lodge et al. (Fungal Diversity 64:1-99. 2014), in the most thorough investigation of Hygrocybe to date, express doubts as to whether H. flavescens and H. chlorophana can be maintained as separate species. Mycobank currently lists H. flavescens as a synonym of H. chlorophana var. aurantiaca.

Photo: D. Malloch (16-08-16/04).