Summary:
Features of Conocybe filaris include 1) a small, orange brown, moist to dry cap that is conic at first, 2) adnexed, close, rusty brown gills, 3) yellowish brown stem with a membranous ring, 4) growth on buried wood, and 5) spores 6.5-9.5 x 4-5 microns. This species is separate from Conocybe rugosa in Watling''s descriptions, but others consider the two names to represent one species. Full consensus appears not to have been reached yet. Many Conocybe spp. have names in Pholiotina (often the ringed species), but again full consensus appears not to have been reached yet. Species Fungorum and MycoBank, accessed in October 2018, differ in their approach (although the primary work of both is nomenclatural rather than taxonomic).

Cap:
(0.2)0.3-1.2cm across, conical with obtuse umbo or conic - bell-shaped, becoming convex on expanding, retaining central umbo; very hygrophanous, cinnamon with rust center, becoming pale ochraceous to dull ochraceous tinged cinnamon on drying, smooth or rarely rugulose [finely wrinkled], margin striate to halfway or more when moist, (Watling), 0.5-2.5cm across, obtusely conic at first, soon expanding to conic-convex or conic - bell-shaped, then nearly flat and often with a pronounced but broad umbo; orangish tawny brown; "moist when wet, soon dry, usually smooth overall", margin slightly translucent-striate when moist, (Stamets)

Flesh:
fulvous in cap, paler in top of stem, sepia to cigar brown at very base, (Watling)

Gills:
adnexed, ventricose, not crowded; fulvous, edge white; edge flocculose-denticulate, (Watling), adnexed, close, moderately broad, and with one to three tiers of subgills; rusty brown at maturity, (Stamets)

Stem:
1-3.5cm x 0.05-0.15cm, equal or widening slightly downward, with ring; ivory at top, ivory to silvery white in lower part from silky fibrils, gradually sepia from base upwards; pruinose at top, coarsely fibrillose-striate in lower part, (Watling), 1-4cm x 0.1-0.2cm, fibrous, equal to narrowing slightly downwards, and often curved at base; dingy yellowish-brown to ochraceous, (Stamets)

Veil:
ring conspicuous though small, about halfway from top, often slipping to base, felt-like, striate on upper surface, whitish to cream on upper surface, buff on lower surface, (Watling), partial veil membranous, leaving a fragile, nonpersistent, often movable, collar-like membranous ring, which is rusty brown in color because of the spores in the median to lower regions of the stem, may degrade into a ring zone, (Stamets)

Odor:
distinct, insipid, (Watling)

Taste:
distinct, insipid, (Watling)

Microscopic spores:
spores (6.5)7-8.5(9.5) x (4)4.5-5 microns, elliptic in face view, slightly almond-shaped in side view, "fairly thick-walled, sienna in water and tinged rusty tawny in alkali", germ pore present though not prominent; basidia 4-spored, 17.5-25 x 5-10 microns, clavate, colorless; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia lageniform drawn out at apex into neck, 24-40(45) x 8-10.5 microns, apex obtuse 2.5-4(6) microns wide, neck 5-7 microns long; cap cuticle a hymeniform layer of spheropedunculate cells 10.5-21 microns broad with slightly darkened pedicels; stem cuticle below ring a network of colorless, thin, superficial hyphae seated on broader, rusty tawny, parallel hyphae; veil of interwoven, colorless, or pale-colored hyphae 1.5-8 microns broad; clamp connections present, (Watling), spores 7.5-13 x 3.5-5.5 microns; basidia 2- and 4-spored, pleurocystidia absent, (Stamets), spores 7.5-13 x 3.5-6.5 microns, smooth, with germ pore, (Phillips)

Spore deposit:
#ERROR!

Notes:
Conocybe filaris has been reported throughout the Pacific Northwest, (Stamets(1)). It is reported specifically from BC (Ammirati(11)). It also occurs in Europe.

EDIBILITY

poisonous, has been reported to contain the same deadly amanitins as Amanita phalloides and Galerina autumnalis, (Stamets)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Pholiota filaris (Fr.) Peck
Pholiotina filaris (Fr.) Singer