Description

Cap 15-45 mm across, campanulate, becoming shallowly conical, generally with a fairly small umbo and a raised concentric zone near the margin or halfway from the centre, translucent-striate, strongly hygrophanous, smooth, glabrous, somewhat greasy-shiny when moist, at first dark brownish violet to reddish violet (except at the umbo which is watery grey-violet or even ochraceous-tinted), fading to pale straw yellow-violet, pale greyish violet or pale greyish pink, with or without brownish shades, the umbo often becoming dingy whitish and contrasting with the concentric zone and the margin that retain their original colour longer. Gills 24-32(-36) reaching the stem, adnexed, smooth to veined, becoming dorsally intervenose, convex, dark brownish violet to reddish violet, turning more purplish brown to reddish brown with age, slightly eroded, whitish. Stem 40-80(-110) x 1.5-4.5(-6) mm, cylindrical, firm but brittle, equal for the greater part, somewhat broadened below, terete or somewhat compressed (and splitting lengthwise), smooth, pruinose to minutely puberulous at the very apex, glabrous and shiny farther down, concolorous with the young cap, with age becoming increasingly more brown (pinkish brown to dark brown), the base covered with long coarse, flexuous, yellowish fibrils. Odour sweetish fragrant mixed with a component resembling the scent of a wooden cigar box (the mixture rather reminiscent of incense), but raphanoid when cut or bruised. Taste raphanoid. Basidia 24-30 x 6.5-7 µm, slendely clavate, 4-spored, with sterigmata 5.5-7 µm long. Spores 7.4-9.8 x 3.6-5.4 µm, pip-shaped to somewhat irregularly shaped, smooth, amyloid. Cheilocystidia 22.5-60(-80) x 3.5-20 µm, forming a sterile band, clavate, fusiform or subcylindrical to more irregularly shaped, smooth. Pleurocystidia scarce to seemingly absent, similar. Lamellar trama dextrinoid. Hyphae of the pileipellis 1.5-2.5 µm wide, smooth, not embedded in gelatinous matter. Hyphae of the cortical layer of the stem 1.5-3 µm wide, smooth, caulocystidia 3.5-10.5 µm wide, slender-clavate to cylindrical, smooth. Clamps present in all elements.

Ecology and distribution

Gregarious to fasciculate in mainly rich, calcareous Fagus forests. Also reported with other trees, both in deciduous and coniferous forests. In Norway only found in souyhern parts together with beech. Very rare, but the distribution is not fully understood.