Armillaria     Genus

This is a key to gilled mushrooms, that is, mushrooms having a definite cap with a fertile surface consisting of gills. The fruiting body usually also has a stem, although that may be lateral or absent (usually, then, the mushroom is growing from wood). You can use this key to identify mushrooms that you find.

Fruiting body containing fibers (usually in the stalk)

Spore print "light-colored": white or buff, sometimes tinged with pink or tan. Greenish and (except for the Russulales) yellow spore prints also go here
Stalk fibrous, not fracturing like a piece of chalk

None of the special features distinguishing the other white-spored genera:
Gills not free, as in the Lepiotas and Amanitas
Basidia not extra-long, as in the Hygrophoraceae
Spores smooth, except for Lentinellus

Growing on trees or dead wood, leaves, or sticks, or organic debris, often in moss

Shaped like a “normal mushroom”
Small and fragile to medium-sized, except for one large, grey-capped species

Grey Brown LignoTrich     Subtribe Fruiting body medium-sized to large Cap grey to brown, sometimes with radiating with dark brown to black fibrils All else white or concolorous with cap Growing on wood or duff

Links from Look-alikes Tricholoma-like Fungi     Subtribe Woodland habitat (mycorrhizal) Stem fleshy, not rooting

Armillaria     Genus     (Battara: Fries) Staude

Diagnosis

• Cap brownish or yellowish, or a mixture of either of those two with grey
  
• Growth habit cestipose, sometimes in troops
  
• Fibrils often quite dense in center of cap, sparser towards the margin
  
• Annulus usually present
  
• Black rhizomorphs

Comments

Narrow down your identification:

Usually growing on ground, not wood, in troops
Annulus fibrillose, cottony
Fruiting bodies only an inch or two across, often connected directly to rhizomorphs

Cap yellow or yellowish brown a little darker at the center; without scales, though it may have some dark hairs in the center
Growing cestipose, usually on hardwoods
Cap often viscid, but sometimes dry
Annulus membranous, white

Grows cestipose on or at the base of conifers
Cap brown, often more than 4" across, covered with dark brown scales
Brown or brown-rimmed annulus

No annulus
Cap yellow; scales reddish-brown to brown, thickest at the disk

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