Based on taxonomy used in Index Fungorum, this species has a particularly wide range through Central Africa and into Madagascar. There are some doubts about the taxonomy, though, with the Malagasy subspecies potentially representing a separate species, which could one its own potentially fall into a threatened category. The nominate subspecies has taxonomic doubts as well, and could represent a synonym of Cantharellus rhodophyllus. Assessing the concept per Index Fungorum, however, would give the species an overall large range, which would not be suspected to approach the thresholds for listing as threatened under any criterion. It is thus assessed as Least Concern.

There is taxonomic uncertainty regarding this binomial. Index Fungorum treats it as an accepted species, whereas a recent taxonomic study (Buyck and Hofstetter 2018) has suggested that subspecies rubrosalmoneus should be split as a separate species, while the nominate subspecies actually is a synonym of Cantharellus rhodophyllus.

Chanterelle project

Based on Index Fungorum taxonomy, this species occurs in Central Africa, with records from Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon (e.g. Ndong et al. 2011), with records for the synonym, Cantharellus incarnatus, from Cameroon and Zambia (Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 2021a,b), although the Cameroon localities descriptions refer to Zambian place names, so it is assumed that these are labelled in error. C. subincarnatus ssp. rubrosalmoneus is endemic to Madagascar, known from Toamasina Province (Buyck et al. 2015).

There is no quantitative information regarding population size and trends, but it is suspected that the population may be in decline due to ongoing threats to its habitat, particularly in Madagascar.

This species occurs in dense forest (Ndong et al. 2011), although one herbarium record (Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 2021a) appears to have been collected from miombo woodland too.

In some areas this species will be being impacted by anthropogenic activities such as logging and land conversion for agriculture. However, these could only represent localised threats, apart from in Madagascar.

Further work to clarify the taxonomic position of this species, and its subspecies is required. Surveys to increase knowledge of its distribution would also be beneficial, if it is retained as an accepted species.

This species is potentially edible (Ndong et al. 2011).