Grey Brown LignoTrich     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 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

Diagnosis

• 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

Narrow down your identification:

• 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

Lookalikes: Collybia sensu lato     SemiTribe Pileus up to 2" across, occasionally larger; sometimes purplish. Usually growing on leaves and duff rather than sticks or wood.

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