Entoloma bloxamii  

A “big blue pinkgill” (Entoloma bloxamii sensu lato), with pale lilac to greyish blue to brown colouration, with larger spores than other members of this clade. It also appears to be more robust or chunky than other potential lookalikes, but this is based on only a few collections. More collections with photographs of fresh fruitbodies are required to improve knowledge of its appearance and size in the field.

Description of the epitype collection:

Pileus (cap): 30-50 mm, conical then conico-convex, hardly expanding with age, with the margin bent downwards, rather pale greyish blue sometimes with slight brown tinge, losing its blue colour almost entirely with age, then pale greyish brown, smooth or very slightly innately fibrillose. Lamellae (gills): crowded, adnate-emarginate, white then pink with serrulate, concolorous edge. Stipe (stalk): 20-45 x 10-18 mm, clavate, almost white, with faint blue or bluish grey tinge, innately fibrillose, base white, sometimes with yellow tinges. Context (flesh) thick, white, smell and taste weak, slightly floury. Spores: 7.4-9.4(10.8) x 6.7-9.7 μm, average 8.2 8.3 μm, Q = 1.01.2, Qav = 1.01, isodiametric to subisodiametric, thin-walled, 7-10 angled in side-view. Basidia: (37)48-70(85) x 11-14.5 μm, clavate to oblong, clamped, 2- and 4-spored. Pileipellis ("skin" of cap): in the centre is an very gelatinous ixocutis made of narrow cylindrical hyphae ranging 20-74 x 25 μm; in the middle of the radius is an ixocutis but with transitions to an ixotrichoderm, made of narrow cylindrical hyphae ranging 25-113 x 3-9 μm; subpellis not differentiated.

Description adapted from Morgado, L. N., Noordeloos, M. E., Lamoureux, Y., & Geml, J. (2013). Multi-gene phylogenetic analyses reveal species limits, phylogeographic patterns, and evolutionary histories of key morphological traits in Entoloma (Agaricales, Basidiomycota). Persoonia: Molecular Phylogeny and Evolution of Fungi, 31, 159.