Conocybe     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)

Gills not free
Spore print tan, orange, deep ochre, yellowish olive, olive brown, rusty or cinnamon brown or deep brown
Ring usually either absent or not membranous

Growing on the ground

Diagnosis

• Cap usually less than 1" across, some dull shade of grey, brown or tan (whitish in one species); cone-shaped
  
• Stalk fragile, brittle; often quite long in proportion to its width (not so in the picture)
  
• Often growing in lawns
  
• Gills usually rusty brown to cinnamon brown at maturity
  
• Spore print ochre brown to cinnamon brown

Microscropic Characters

• Cap cuticle cellular
  
• The species keyed out here all have smooth, elliptical spores with an apical pore

Comments

Narrow down your identification:

Cap up to 1" across
Prominent tan annulus (may get dusted with darker spores on upper surface)
In grass and on all kinds of woody or leafy litter

Cap up to 1" across; dull white to buff
Growing in lawns and meadows

Cap up to 3/8" across; brown
Base of stalk bluish green, at least in age
Growing in moss in bogs

Cap up to 3/4" across; brown to reddish or yellowish brown; margin striate
Growing in lawns and meadows

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