Matsutake and it's Look-a-Likes

Spend a little time browsing online mushroom forums and you discover that some people are very apprehensive about picking Pine Mushrooms (Tricholoma magnivelare) because they are not easy to distinguish from the plethora of other large white mushrooms found on Vancouver Island and other locations in the Pacific Northwest. Others are cavalier, saying that once you know a Matsutake, you will never mistake it for anything else. I'm somewhere in the middle of these poles.

The biggest fear on Vancouver Island is picking and eating a Smith's Amanita.
I've seen a fair number of Smith's Amanitas in my forays, and have never been tempted to bring one home. The damp cottony or fluffy material that seems to cover them has a strange unpleasant feel and the smell is very off-putting. I have been told, however, that some Smith's Amanitas can smell remarkably like a Pine at different stages of their development, and are most often mistaken when in the button or an early stage of fruiting like the ones pictured on the right below.

Confusing matters for me is that most of the Pines I have found have not had a strong spicy, cinnamony, or "red hot" odor. I knew they were not Smith's Amanita, but since so much is made of their odor, I have wondered if it was my nose, the areas I've found them, or some other factors that make it harder for me to smell that "Matsutaki smell." I had heard there was a close cousin to the Pine in our woods, but had forgotten what it was called. I had this vague idea that maybe that was what I was finding.

Smith's Amanita taken by Joe Anderson, http://www.inaturalist.org/photos/568041

The only other mushrooms that came to mind, besides the Smith's Amanita, that might be confused with a Pine were the big Russelas (Cascade and Short Stemmed) and the Death Cap and Destroying Angel. I decided to do some more serious research and find out what the common look-a-likes are and then compile what I find here for future reference.

As suspected, Death Cap, Destroying Angel, and the Russelas are hard to confuse with a Matsutake so I ended up focusing on the 3 Mushrooms most likely to be confused with a Pine Mushroom, the Tricholoma caligatum, Catathelasma ventricosum (and its close cousin the Catathelasma imperiale) and of course Amanita smithiana. I gathered the relevant info in a chart below.

One of the most helpful online resources in my research was was "Matsis and Wannabees: A Primer on Pine Mushrooms by Britt A. Bunyard in Volume 6:4 of FUNGI (2013). This is perhaps the best readily available and readable article I could find. http://www.fungimag.com/winter-2013-2014-articles/LR%20V6I4%20Matsis.pdf

Also very extensive and useful is: http://bcmushrooms.forrex.org/ntfp/pages/trichomagniv/trichomagniv_syn.html 

In my research I referenced "Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest," "Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America: A Field-to-Kitchen Guide," and "Common Mushrooms of the Northwest," as well as the following websites: wikipedia.org, usask.ca, svims.ca, projectnoah.org, .mushroomthejournal.com, and mushroomexpert.com.

Pine Mushrooms and Their Look-a-Likes

Common Name	Pine Mushroom, Matsutake	Fragrant Tricholoma, Fragrant Boot, Booted tricholoma, Fragrant Armillaria	Cat, Big Cat, Imperial Cat	Smith's Amanita
Scientific Name	Tricholoma magnivelare	Tricholoma caligatum (formerly - Armillaria caligata)	Catathelasma ventricosum and Catathelasma Imperiale	Amanita smithiana and Amanita silvicola
Main Distinction from a Pine Mushroom	There appears to be a growing concensus that the mushroom we call a Pine here on Vancouver Island is Tricholoma magnivelare and that it is different from Tricholoma matsutake. The similarities are, however, so striking that for our pruposes we can call our Pine a Matsutakes.	Generally more brown with more fibrils on the cap Smaller cap when mature Boot shaped fibrous veil (sometimes) highly variable taste, usually bitter Less common	Double veil and amyloid spores. (Double veil can be hard to distinguish More grey or brown than white No spicy odor Prefers Spruce Larger -- can have caps  that are a foot across when fully mature (Imperiale) Both are rare on Vancouver Island	Usually ghostly white, with a more slender stipe, and covered in fluffy ragged patches and warts Firm, but not as firm as a Pine Mushroom and not as likely to pull apart like string cheese. Usually smells different than a Pine, unpleasant.
Cap	Dry Mostly White Smooth, sometimes with faint scale-like brown  splotches. Others describe as "slightly shaggy" Occasionally grey or brown in colour all over Cap edge is in-rolled 5 - 20 cm or larger	Dry Mostly brown (light to deep brown to chestnut) surface over white Others describe the colour by refering to the prominent dark brown vinaceous fibrils that cover white flesh, sometimes separating in age to reveal the whitish or pinkish flesh beneath. Cap edge is in-rolled 4 - 12 cm across Sometimes with remnants of the partial veil attached, most of which remains as a ring.	Generally dry but Imperiale can be sticky with young. Brownish to grey. Cap edge has a strongly in-rolled margin 5 - 15 cm (ventricosum) 5 - 40 cm (Imperiale)	Moist or dry White with cotton -like warts Punky Often presence of clingy cottony remnants of veil hanging from edge of cap 12 - 20 cm across or  5 - 17cm across (depending on age)
Gills	White to cinnamon coloured with age Tricholoma means it has notched (adnexed) gills, white spores, and is mycorrhizal (symbiotic relationship with photosynthesizing plants/trees)	White, becoming spotted brown with age Tricholoma means it has notched (adnexed) gills, white spores, and is mycorrhizal (symbiotic relationship with photosynthesizing plants/trees)	Long, decurrent, crowded, narrow Extend down stipe	White to cream coloured sometimes pinkish, closely crowded, floccose edges free to narrowly adnate, sometimes with a faint decurrent line on stem apex, close to crowded
Spores	White	White	White, amyloid	White
Stipe	Firm Pointed at the base White above ring white below ring but often with brown streaked areas Sometimes expanded at base Usually grey soil and fibrals at base	Firm Pointed at the base White but often also covered with brown fibrils or reddish brown spots (with age)	Firm Pointed at the base	Firm, but generally not as firm as Tricholoma magnivelare White, usually above and below ring. veil leaves soft powdery or cottony covering. Generally thickening towards base but can be pointed at base or club shapped Can have Often grey soil at base.
Veil	Thick membranous Sheaths the stipe, white at first, forming prominent cottony ring that flares out at first, then collapses against stem when old	Stipe below the ring often bears brown fibrils like those on the cap, giving the mushroom the appearance of wearing a boot, hense, caligatum (Latin for boot)	has two viels, an inner one that leaves a ring on the upper stipe, with one lower down as well.	shaggy cotton-like remnant remains on young speciments, leaves a fragile, ragged ring that easily falls off.
Habitat	Conifer forests	Conifer forests	Under sitka spruce, western hemlock & Douglas fir Usually in calcareous soils  forming arcs or rings of fruiting bodies	Conifer forests, also alder and mixed forests Can be soil or well-rotted wood
Odor and Taste	distinctly spicy-aromatic. "organic (not earthy or mushroomy) smell"	Usually reported to be unpleasant in the PNW. Sometimes claimed to have a similar odor to magnivelare. Some claim it is a minder smelling mushroom while others claim caligatum is more cinnamony.	Has a strong farinaceous odor and taste. A common mushroomy smell like that of cucumbers, watermelon rind, or an old grain mill "tastes mealy" - http://www.mushroomexpert.com/catathelasma.html	Not spicy, often described as chlorine like, often as unpleasant. Also described as mild to pungent. A number of reports say it smells similar to a Pine Mushroom.
Edibility		"...sometimes edible and good, but sometimes very bitter and foul tasting." - Tom Volk
Indicator Species	Candystick (Allotropa vigata) or Booted Knight (tricholoma focale)
Notes	Stipe peels somewhat like string cheese. Usually distributed in clusters on the narrow mountain ridges and southfacing slopes.	"Another similar species, the booted tricholoma..., can be found mixed with pine mushroom at buying stations in British Columbia (Marty Kranabetter, B.C. Ministry of Forests, and Tyson Ehlers, Tysig Ecological Consultants, pers. comms., 2000)"- BC Journal of Ecosystems and Management Is the booted tricholoma in British Columbia really Japanese matsutake? A California version of Tricholoma caligatum (sensu Shanks, 1994) grows under conifers from "November to December in northern coastal forests and low elevation montane forests of the Sierra Nevada"; it is extremely bitter. Given its widely different mycorrhizal associations, it may well be a distinct species. I have collected a mild-tasting form of Tricholoma caligatum under spruce and fir in the Rocky Mountains. - http://www.mushroomexpert.com/tricholoma_caligatum.html "Tricholoma caligatum smells weakly of matsutakes and indeed is often collected and eaten as such." - Britt A. Bunyard "There are more and darker (purplish-brown) fibrils or scales on the cap and stipe of T. caligatum, which is smaller and less robust [than magnivelare]. Its aroma also has a sharper, cinnamon candy (Red Hots) component lacking from the pine mushroom’s musty and spicy smell." - http://bcmushrooms.forrex.org/ntfp/pages/trichomagniv/trichomagniv_syn.html	There are two species, both occure in the Pacific Northwest, Cathathlasma ventricosum (pale grayish cap) and C Imperiale (brown Cap) No official confirmation it occurs on Vancouver Island	Often tall stature and "ghostly white all over" Warts can become tan colored when dried out Usually appears to have a ragged scaly stem with spindle-shaped bulb that is often rooting Very common An old specimen can look quite different from a fresh one "Amanita smithiana has free gill attachment and being from section Lepidella, it is quite powdery.  The texture of the flesh should be pretty different as well.  Matsutake has a pretty stringy texture, while Amanitas can not be peeled like string cheese."

Here is a longer up-close HD video of one of my Tricholoma magnivelare as I was not able to find any good quality ones on-line: