SPECIMEN: NZ: NA, Waitakere Ranges, Lucy Cranwell Track, ZT 744, 746, 1541; Waitakere Ranges, Mill Bay, ZT 1015.-WL, Ngahere, Kopara, Lake Ahaura, ZT 68/140.

Pileus -20 mm, hemispherical to convex, with strongly incurved margin in young specimens, becoming plano-convex or obtusely campanulate; brilliant orange (often with brick-red or carrot-orange tinge), fading to apricot or pale yellow, dry, glabrous, scarcely hygrophanous, substriate at margin. - lamellae -12 (1 -3) broadly adnate-decurrent or arcuate; concolorous with pileus or paler, edges entire, occasionally anastomosing. - Stipe 10-30 x 1-2.5 mm, cylindrical, equal or gradually attenuating towards base; concolorous with pileus or paler (especially towards base); dry, glabrous to minutely fibrillose, solid becoming fistulose, single (or caespitose). - Context orange. - (Odour and taste not distinctive. - Chemical reactions on pileus: KOH, HCl and NH₃ - negative. Spores 3-5 x (2.5-) 3-4 um, drop-shaped, occasionally ovoid, apiculus distinctly enlarged at base. – Basidia 20-35 x 4-6 um, 4-spored (rarely 2-spored with spores 5-6 x 3-3.5 um). - Cystidia absent - Pileipellis a cutis of interwoven, cylindrical hyphae (4-8 um diam.), membrane not gelatinised, encrusted with pigment; clamp connections present (PL 1, Fig.5).

DISTRIBUTION: NZ (NA, WL, STI).

ECOLOGY: Scattered (but locally common); saprobic on soil in mixed broadleaved-conifer forests (Leptospermum, Nothofagus, Weinmannia, Metrosideros). March-June.

ICON.: Horak (1973: 146).

Colour, size, and shape of the basidiomes are as in C. aurantiopallens Horak which also shares its habitat with C. apricosus (Horak). The two similar taxa however, are readily distinguished by the shape and size of the spores.

TYPE: NZ: STI, between Christmas Village and Mt Anglem, under Senecio, Metrosideros, and Weinmannia, 15 iii 1969, Horak, PDD 27084.