New Zealand: Nelson: Lake Rotoiti, track to Mt Robert, 2.V. 1968, leg. Horak (PDD 27162, holotype; ZT 68/344, isotype). - Westland: Haast Pass, 14.1V. 1965, leg. Taylor. 231.

Pileus -80 mm, hemispheric to convex when young becoming expanded with age, centre occasionally depressed around umbo; honey-brown, date-brown or orange-brown when moist, fading with drying; glutinous to viscid, covered with minute, whitish fibrils and squamules from universal veil, hygrophanous, striate towards margin. Lamellae crowded, emarginate (and often decurrent with short teeth), ventricose; pale argillaceous at first, turning to pale rust-brown, edge concolorous, even or subserrate. Stipe -150 x-15 mm, fusoid, tapering towards base, rooting in litter; white, changing to pale yellow-brown or brass-yellow with age, strongly fibrillose; annulus white, indistinctly striate, evanescent; below annulus several incomplete, white, fibrillose bands from universal veil; dry, solid, single, in groups. Context white, brown beneath cuticle and in base of stipe. Odour and taste not distinctive. Chemical reactions on pileus: KOH, HCI - negative. Spore print pale rust-brown. Spores 11-15 x 6-7.5 µm, amygdaliform, verrucose, brown, mucro none. Cheilocystidia not observed Basidia 35-42 x 10-12 µm, 4-spored. Cuticle a cutis of slightly gelatinised, cylindric hyphae (2-4 µm diam.), sub-cutis composed of subglobose or polygonal cells, membranes encrusted with dark brown (KOH) pigment. Clamp connections present.

o n soil among litter under Nothofagus: solandri (Hook.f.) Oerst. var. cliffortioides: (Hook.f.) Poole and N. menziesii (Hook.f.) Oerst New Zealand.

Pileus -80 mm, hemisphaericus dein plano-convexus, melleus vel aurantiobrunneus, glutinosus, striatus, squamulis minutis albisque instructus. Lamellae argillaceae dein pallide ferrugineae. Stipes -150 x-15 mm, fusoideus, albus dein aureobrunneus, annulo albo substriato et zonis albis inconspicuis basim versus instructus. Sporae 11-15 x 6-7.5 µm, amygdaliformes vel ellipticae, verrucosae, brunneae. Ad terram in silvis nothofagineis. Novazelandia.

In New Zealand's Nothofagus forests, Routes fusipes fruits preferentially among deep moss in damp localities. The long and tapering stipe makes this species well adapted to such sites. The non-striate annulus of R. fusipes is often ruptured or may fall off, so that in the field the generic identification of this taxon can be difficult.

Typus PDD 27162.