Snowbank mushroom

A snowbank fungus is any one of a number of diverse species of fungi that occur adjacent to or within melting snow. They are most commonly found in the mountains of western North America where a deep snowpack accumulates during the winter and slowly melts through the spring and summer, often shaded by coniferous forest. They may be saprotrophic, mycorrhizal, or in the case of Caloscypha fulgens, pathogenic.

William Bridge Cooke was the first to discuss the snowbank fungi as a distinct ecological group in 1944 when he discussed the fungal flora of Mount Shasta in California. He followed this with another publication 11 years later. In his 1975 book A Field Guide to Western Mushrooms, Alexander H. Smith discussed what he called the "snowbank flora", noting "It seems obvious to me that the species in this group are well established throughout the forest zone, and have adjusted to this fruiting pattern, possibly as a response to the habitat drying out and warming up as summer progresses."

Snowbank fungi include members of the Basidiomycota and the Ascomycota. Mycorrhizal basidiomycetes include Cortinarius ahsii, C. auchmerus, C. clandestinus, C. croceus, and some others that are provisionally named, as well as the gasteroid species Pholiota nubigena. White-spored species include the saprobes , , Lentinellus montanus (formerly Lyophyllum), Mycena overholtsii, and the conifer cone decomposers Strobilurus albipilatus and S. occidentalis. Also white spored, H. goetzii, H.  marzuolus, and H. subalpinus are believed to be (or suspected to be) mycorrhizal with conifers. The ecological preferences of Melanoleuca angelesiana and Neohygrophorus angelesianus are unknown. Non-gilled basidiomycetes include Pycnoporellus alboluteus and Tyromyces leucospongia.

...
Wikipedia