Conservation Status: Not of concern

Edibility: There are conflicting reports about its edibility---PNW collections often have an unpleasant odor and taste, yet in the Rockies and northeastern U.S., it is reported as good. Perhaps the odor and taste of populations vary (it often is reported as being pleasantly spicy), collections of T. magnivelare are being mis-identified, or more than one species is involved.

There are conflicting reports about its edibility---PNW collections often have an unpleasant odor and taste, yet in the Rockies and northeastern U.S., it is reported as good. Perhaps the odor and taste of populations vary (it often is reported as being pleasantly spicy), collections of T. magnivelare are being mis-identified, or more than one species is involved.

Tricholoma caligatum is a medium-sized, slender fungus with an attractive mix of light and dark coloration. Typical forms are white, with a dense covering of dark brown fibrils that become increasingly isolated as scales or patches as the cap expands. The cap edge is inrolled and often bears slight cottony remnants of the partial veil, most of which remains as a ring. The gills and upper stipe are white (the gills often become reddish brown-spotted in age), and the stipe below the ring often bears brown fibrils like those of the cap, giving the mushroom the appearance of wearing a boot (caligatum is Latin for boot). T. caligatum formerly was classified in the genus Armillaria (as A. caligata Viviani), along with T. focale, T. magnivelare, and other tricholomas that differ from the rest of the genus by having a ring, albeit one that is not always well developed. T. caligatum is encountered in the PNW less frequently than its nearest look-alike, T. magnivelare (which is stockier, with fewer and paler fibrils, and nearly always with a pleasant cinnamon-spicy odor), but is widepread and sometimes abundant in other parts of North America, Europe, and Asia.