Pholiota lucifera

Species growing on decaying buried wood and roots, with a convex to flattened pileus 3 to 6 cm in diameter, sticky in wet conditions, orange-brown with darker reddish-brown appressed squamules, adnate to slightly decurrent brown lamellae, a cylindrical, flexuous, slightly bulbous stipe, yellow, with darker scales below the annular zone, a pleasant odour, and bitter taste.

Pileipellis with an ixocutis of filamentous hyphae 2 to 6 µm wide, widely separated by gelatinization, containing abundant brown encrusting intracellular pigment, septate with clamp connections.

Cheilocystidia cylindrical to clavate, 25 to 40 µm long and 9 to 12 µm wide.

Pleurocystidia and chrysocystidia absent.

Basidia cylindrical-clavate, 20 to 25 µm long, 6 to 8 µm wide, clamped at the base, 4-spored.

Spores ellipsoidal, thick- and smooth-walled, yellowish-brown under the microscope, 7 to 8.5 µm long, 4 to 5.5 µm wide, with an almost imperceptible hyaline eccentric apiculus at one pole and without a distinct germ pore.