one of our most beautiful mushrooms. It looks kind of like a Pholiota, but the spores are white, unornamentedm and amyloid (see third picture). The scales are an integral part of the cap and stipe. No genus existed for it, so we elevated Armillaria subgenus Leucopholiota to genus level. For the interesting story of how I got to name this mushroom, along with Orson Miller and Alan Bessette, see http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/sep2001.html