Hydnum rufescens
English: Terracotta hedgehog.
Clades: Hydnaceae; Basidiomycota.
Region: European coniferous and deciduous forests.
Habitat: on soil; ectomycorrhizal with Picea abies, Pinus sylvestris, Fagus sylvatica, Quercus robur.
Use: edible.
Mycology
Distinction: fairly nondescript, easy to overlook; their spines.
Type: tooth fungi, which produce fruit bodies whose cap undersurfaces are covered by hymenophores resembling spines or teeth, and not pores or gills.
Cap: beige, yellow; to 17 cm wide; irregular, convex or concave, distorted when clustered; margin wavy, rolled inward when young; dry; smooth, cracking when mature; similar to chanterelles; flesh is thick, white, firm, brittle, bruises yellow to orange-brown.
Hymenium: densely covered with small, slender whitish spines, 2 to 7 mm long, run down at least one side of the stipe.
Stipe: 3 to 10 cm long, 1 to 3 cm thick; white or the same color as the cap; central.
Spore print: pale cream.
Spores: basidiospores are smooth, thin-walled, hyaline, roughly spherical to broadly egg-shaped, 5. to 8 by 4 to 6 µm, contain a single, large refractive oil droplet; basidia are club-shaped, four-spored, and measure 30 to 45 by 6 to 10 µm; cap cuticle is a trichodermium of narrow, club-shaped cells that are 2 to 4 µm wide; the subhymenial layer of interwoven hyphae measuring 10 to 20 µm in diameter; spine tissue is made of thin-walled hyphae with clamp connections;, 2 to 5 µm diameter.