Scaly Little Lepiota     SubSection

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

Gills free
Annulus usually present (on some small species, the partial veil may remain instead as scraps of tissue on the edge of the cap)
Cap often umbonate, often with a concentric design of scales that are an intrinsic part of the cap (not easily peeled off without taking part of the cap with it)
The cap is also usually egg-shaped or completely round (like a globe) at first - - it doesn't start to open until the stem is almost fully grown

Cap less than 3" across at maturity; usually less than 2
If flesh changes color when cut or bruised, it turns red, without any preliminary color
Cap scaly or powdery (or both!)
Stem typically tough, fibrous
Ring typically persistent, membranous

Diagnosis

• Cap and stalk without powdery covering
  
• Neither cap nor gills yellow

Narrow down your identification:

Usually with a strong odor, described variously as fruity, foul, fishy, spicy, or pungent
Cap cuticle (and the scales formed from it) brown to deep red

Cap cuticle cinnamon to pinkish brown, breaking up into scales as the cap expands; the flesh that shows between the scales is white, but may age reddish; the disk stays solid pinkish brown
The stalk similarly covered with a reddish brown skin that breaks up into bands of scales
Partial veil evanescent, often leaving wispy remnants on the cap margin but no ring on the stalk
Odor musty, slight

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