Macroscopic features

  Pileus up to 40 x 35 mm when still closed, subglobose, ovoid or ellipsoid, expanding to conical or convex and then up to 70 mm wide, centre pale ochre or dirty rust, paler towards margin, covered with a layer of felty, whitish veil, breaking up into patches (like in Amanita), those becoming cream, ochre or somewhat darker brown at centre of pileus. Lamellae, number not noted, free, first white then grey-brown to black, 3--8(--10) mm broad. Stipe 30--80 x 2--7 mm, white, base clavate, sometimes with a volva-like margin and often attached to a rust coloured ozonium.

Microscopic features

  Spores 8.5--10.5 x 5.2--5.7 µm, Q = , av. Q = , av. L = µm, av. B = µm, ovoid or ellipsoid, in side view a few phaseoliform, with rounded base and apex, medium red-brown; germ pore eccentric, c. 1.3 µm wide. Basidia 18--34 x 8--9 µm, 4-spored, surrounded by 3--6 pseudoparaphyses. Pleurocystidia 50--120 x 30--65 µm, subglobose, ellipsoid, broadly utriform or subcylindric. Cheilocystidia 30--100 x 30-60 µm, (sub)globose, ellipsoid, ovoid, broadly utriform. Caulocystidia 35--100 x 10--28 x 7--12 µm, lageniform (not found on the type-material). Veil 20--80 x 5--30 µm, made up of chains of cylindrical to ellipsoid, fusoid or (sub)globose cells, if (sub)globose than towards end of the chain and 25--45 µm in diam., thin-walled to somewhat thick-walled and brownish, the thick-walled in particular from and around centre of pileus. Pileipellis a epithelioid hymeniderm. Clamp-connections absent, only pseudoclamps found.

Habitat & distribution

  Fasciculate, sometimes solitary around truncs or on logs, branches of coniferous trees. Vert rare, known by us from France and the Netherlands.

Remarks

  The size of the spores are typical for C. xanthothrix, which also often is entirely covered with very thick veil in young stages, but that species is smaller and grows generally on dead branches of deciduous trees whereas C. bipellis preferes burned places or coniferous trees.