Summary:
Features include 1) small size, 2) a striate, pruinose, conic cap that becomes bell-shaped to convex, 3) hygrophanous russet to fulvous cap color, 4) pale ochraceous young gills, 5) a fulvous pruinose stem, 6) growth on moss, and 7) large ovate spores on 2-spored basidia. Its "dark russet, tiny, fragile aspect along with the overall pruinose appearance make it one of the easiest Galerina species to identify" (Castellano, genus name in italics). The description is derived from Smith(2) except where indicated. According to Smith, "It has been collected in the Pacific Northwest and Michigan in quantity and we would expect it to be one of the common species in Canada".

Cap:
0.3-1.2cm across, obtusely conic becoming bell-shaped to convex; hygrophanous, russet to fulvous (paler between striations) drying pale yellow; moist, striate to disc when moist, densely pruinose from projecting pileocystidia at first, (Smith), "pale red to red-brown with even darker central disc and striations the full length of cap", fading to pale yellow, (Castellano)

Flesh:
very thin, watery, fragile; tawny to ochraceous, (Smith)

Gills:
broadly adnate, distant, broad, subventricose [somewhat broader in middle]; pale ochraceous becoming tawny, edges white; edges fringed and often slightly eroded, (Smith), pale ocher, darkening to sienna or tawny, (Castellano)

Stem:
2-4.5cm x 0.1-0.2cm, equal or widening downward slightly, fragile; pale fulvous but gradually darkening over lower part to dark fulvous (about colored as cap or darker), densely pruinose from projecting caulocystidia until past maturity, (Smith), pale fulvous or cinnamon fading to dark fulvous or rusty-tawny, (Castellano)

Veil:
none (Smith)

Odor:
not distinctive (Smith)

Taste:
not distinctive (Smith)

Microscopic spores:
spores (10.5)11-15(16.5) x 6-9 microns, ovate-apiculate in face view, slightly inequilateral in side view, rugulose [wrinkled] to minutely warty when revived in KOH, some showing 1-3 oil droplets, with apical callus; basidia 2-spored; pleurocystidia scattered, 38-70 x 10-15(16) microns, fusoid-ventricose, thin-walled and colorless to sometimes somewhat brown in KOH, cheilocystidia abundant to scattered, 28-40(60) x (8)9-18 microns, narrowly to broadly fusoid-ventricose, thin-walled, colorless or sometimes brownish in KOH; epicutis of cap poorly differentiated, pileocystidia 50-90 x 7.5-15(20) microns, similar to pleurocystidia; clamp connections present, (Smith)

Spore deposit:
red-buff (Buczacki)

Notes:
Galerina atkinsoniana has been found in WA and OR, and is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere, (Castellano). Distribution includes the Pacific Northwest, MI, and ME, and it is common in the Alps, (Smith). It also occurs in BC (Paul Kroeger, pers. comm.) There are collections at the Pacific Forestry Center in Victoria from BC.

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