Leucopaxillus     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 the ground

Found in woods
Not rooting

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

Diagnosis

• 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)

Microscropic Characters

• Spores either smooth and very slightly amyloid or bumpy and amyloid, with the bumps cyanophilous
  
• Hyphae with plenty of clamp connections

Narrow down your identification:

Cap 1-8" across, white, growing yellow or sometimes tan in age
The rest of the fruiting body white
Odor sometimes fragrant
Taste often bitter
Stem often tapered at the base, and often enlarged just above where it tapers
In woods, especially with conifers

Cap 1 1/2-7", white to pale pinkish buff; margin inrolled when young, often ribbed or grooved
Smell mealy
Taste very bitter, with perhaps a mealy component

Cap 3-12" across, pinkish-buff to tan
Stem usually clavate, enlarged at base
Odor and taste mild to unpleasant

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