Clitocybe-like Fungi     Subtribe

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 the ground

Found in woods
Not rooting

Diagnosis

• Gills attached to decurrent
  
• Coloration usually white to greyish brown, sometimes purple or with purple tones
  
• Never with a ring of any kind

Narrow down your identification:

• Gills attached to decurrent, crowded
  
• Cap glabrous, small to very large; often aging into a funnel shape
  
• Spore print often tinged with pink or buff
  
• Look for things here if they have non-free gills and don't fit the other taxa

• Fruiting body often with purple colors, especially on the gills
  
• If no purple colors, then cap warm brown and minutely scaly, and gills white
  
• Base of stalk (sometimes entire stalk) coated with fuzzy white or purple mycelium
  
• Stalk often with tough "shavings" or "hangnails" of fibrous tissue projecting from it

• On forest litter, usually binding the litter together with a mycelial mat at the base of the fruiting body
  
• Cap white or brown; flesh white, tough; often easily separable from the gills
  
• Typically marcescent: the flesh contains antibiotic substances, so the fruiting body often never rots, it just gradually dries up
  
• Odor, taste, often distinctive (although often unpleasant)

Lookalikes: Hygrophoropsis     Genus Gills orange, deeply decurrent. Pileus some shade of orange or yellow.

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