and apparently undocumented (but maybe he has dessicata or a photo somewhere?)… coulda been and probably was just some kind of individual aberration/mutation.
goodness knows I haven’t seen anything like a membranous partial veil in velosa, and I look at a heck of a lot of these mushrooms.

I suspect what we are seeing in Richard’s photo is just a bit of the stalk peeling up, especially since it seems to be a unilateral phenomenon.

now the “pseudo-skirt”,(a subtle ring of flocculent material often seen around a velosa stipe) is a known phenomenon for this species, but that just seems to be where the cap edge breaks off from the stipe as it expands.

photo of pseudo-skirt here: http://www.bayareamushrooms.org/...

It would be fascinating to get such material dried and send it to the folks who are doing DNA studies on section Caesareae. I’ve always wondered if there were members of the Caesareae with poorly formed annuli or without annuli…and where the Vaginatae with floccose upper stipe belong in relation to the Caesareae. I doubt if I’ll ever see enough species in my life time to figure it out purely on the grounds of anatomy.

R.

on the right-hand side of the sectioned fruiting body?

It looks like an annulus. Could it be a surface “splinter” of the stipe tissue?

R.