SPECIMENS: NZ: NA, Omahuta, Puketi Forest, Waipapa River, ZT 575. - N, Reefton, Awarau River, Larry's Creek, ZT 2008. - WL, Whataroa Okarito, ZT 1983.

Pileus -30 mm, hemispherical-convex soon becoming expanded with flat to depressed centre, margin rarely upturned; brilliant red (vermilion, scarlet), fading to red-orange-yellow; dry, glabrous at first becoming minutely to coarsely fibrillose or squamulose, scurfy, tips of squamules concolorous, slightly hygrophanous, margin non-striate. -Lamellae 6-14 (1-3) distant, arcuate-decurrent, up to 4 mm wide; apricot, pale yellow or pale orange, edges concolorous, entire. - Stipe 20-70 x 1-2 mm, cylindrical, very slender, equal, concolorous with pileus, changing to pale orange-yellow at base; dry, glabrous, fistulose, single. - Context red beneath cortex of pileus and stipe (upper portion), otherwise pale orange. - Odour and taste not distinctive. - Chemical rcactions on pileus: KOH- yellow. Spores 7-9 (-10) x 4.5-5.5 (-6) um, ovoid. – Basidia 40-50 x 7-8um,4-spored. - Cystidia absent - Pileipellis a trichoderm of loosely interwoven, cylindrical hyphae (8-18um diam.), terminal cells cylindrical or fusoid-conical, membrane not gelatinised, with yellow (KOH) plasmatic pigment, oleiferous hyphae in subcutis; clamp connections present (Pl. 1, Fig. 1).

DISTRIBUTION: NZ (NA, N, WL); AUS (NSW). - Scattered in northern hemisphere (USA, Jamaica, Europe, Japan).

ECOLOGY: Scattered; saprobic, in swamps among Sphagnum sp. with Leptospermum scoparium or in boggy broadleaved-conifer forests (Podocarpus, Agathis). March-May.

ICON,: Hongo (1958); Lange (1940: 167 B); Hesler & Smith (1963: 153).

According to Arnolds (1986b) H. cantharellus represents a polymorphic species-complex whose correct interpretation is still open to discussion. The New Zealand material agrees in all essential characters with the description given by Hesler & Smith (1963) and with specimens recently collected by the author (ZT 3956) in North Carolina, USA.

TYPE: Southern USA.