Summary:
Hygrophorus inocybiformis is distinguished by a dark gray or dark gray brown fibrillose-scaly cap fringed at first with veil remnants, decurrent, thick, white gills that are tinted grayish, a stem with gray-brown fibrillose scales over a white ground color, elliptical large spores and long, narrow basidia. The description is derived from Hesler(1) except where indicated.

Cap:
3-6cm across, conic to obtuse becoming bell-shaped or obtusely umbonate or flat or slightly depressed, margin incurved; dark gray ("drab" Ridgway(1) color) over all or with dark drab fibrils over pallid background when old; "dry, innately fibrillose to fibrillose-squamulose", fringed with marginal remnants of fibrillose veil when young

Flesh:
thin except on disc, soft, fragile; whitish or tinged pallid gray near cap surface, unchanging when cut or bruised, in stem white

Gills:
short-decurrent or arcuate [arched], subdistant, broad, rather thick and firm; pallid to grayish buff ("pale olive-buff" Ridgway(1) color); edges even, (Hesler), alternating with short thick subgills, nearly white tinted gray to grayish buff, (Bessette(1))

Stem:
3-6cm x 0.5-1.2cm, subequal [more or less equal] or narrowing at base slightly, solid; white and bald to appressed-silky toward top, streaked with dark grayish brown fibrils below ring zone, dry

Veil:
zone left by broken veil on stem; fibrillose remnants fringe the cap margin

Microscopic spores:
spores 9-14 x (5)6-8 microns, elliptic, smooth, inamyloid; basidia 4-spored, 60-85 x 10-12 microns; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia not differentiated; gill tissue divergent; clamp connections abundant

Spore deposit:
white (Bessette(1))

Notes:
Collections were examined from ID and CA, (Hesler(1)). Bessette(1) indicates that it occurs in AK: "distributed in the mountains and conifer forests of the western United States including Alaska and Canada; infrequent". It is reported from Scandinavia, (Bessette(1)). There is a collection from BC at the University of British Columbia.

EDIBILITY

unknown (Bessette(1))