Gymnopus dryophilus

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

Cap up to 2" across, occasionally larger; sometimes purplish
Usually growing on leaves and duff rather than directly on the ground

Spore deposit whitish
Fruiting bodies marcescent
Spores neither cyanophilous nor dextrinoid

Gymnopus dryophilus     (Bulliard: Fries) Murrill

Here are the characters that distinguish this species from the others in its group. For its more general characters, see higher up on the page.
If there's just a few words or a microscopic feature here, a more thorough description can be found above.

Diagnosis

• Cap warm brown; convex with an inrolled margin when young, becoming umbonate with an upraised wavy margin in age
  
• Stalk sometimes clavate (big end down); lower part or surrounding substrate often covered with white mycelium; hollow, tough

 

 

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