Summary:
Also listed in Veined category. Marasmiellus filopes is recognized by its minute pinkish buff or pale brownish gray cap, its pallid pruinose stem insititious on needles of conifers, mild garlic or cauliflower odor, and lack of rhizomorphs. It also has diverticulate cortical hyphae on the stem. There are problems with its placement in Marasmiellus and it is likely to end up in a different genus.

Cap:
0.05-0.25cm across, convex, often subumbonate [somewhat umbonate]; "at times nearly white, fawn centrally to vinaceous buff on expanded portions in others"; dry, dull, opaque, often radially furrowed, obscurely powdered at times, (Redhead(34)), 0.1-0.25cm across, convex, somewhat umbonate or rarely with a small papilla; 'grayish orange' or 'brownish gray', margin colored as disc when young, fading to 'pale pinkish buff' or buff when old; bald or minutely granulose, dull, opaque, subrugulose [somewhat finely wrinkled] on disc, margin striate or sulcate [grooved], (Desjardin)

Flesh:
thin, membranous; colored as cap, (Redhead(34)), thin; buff or brownish gray, (Desjardin)

Gills:
"adnate, at times ascending, subdistant to distant", occasionally somewhat fold-like, subgills absent or in 1 tier; colored as cap or paler, (Redhead(34)), adnate to adnexed, distant, 1 tier of subgills, broad, not forked or interveined; pinkish buff, (Desjardin)

Stem:
0.5-1.5cm x 0.01-0.02cm, thread-like, insititious, somewhat wiry; buff to nearly white, usually slightly darker basally; bald in upper part, sparsely minutely fibrillose basally, (Redhead(34)), 0.5-1.3cm x 0.02-0.05cm, thread-like, equal, round in cross-section, insititious, wiry but not bristle-like; buff or pinkish buff at top, ''pale brownish gray'' at base, no rhizomorphs but rhizomorph like sterile stems abundant; minutely pruinose overall, (Desjardin)

Odor:
of cauliflower when crushed while fresh, indistinct in revived material, (Redhead(34)), mildly alliaceous (garlicky), (Desjardin)

Taste:
not distinctive (Redhead(34)), mildly alliaceous (garlicky), (Desjardin)

Microscopic spores:
spores 8.4-11 x 3-4 microns, narrowly to broadly elliptic to obscurely fusoid [spindle-shaped] or pip-shaped, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, thin-walled, with prominent apiculus; basidia 4-spored, scarcely projecting when mature, 20-30 x 3-4 microns, clavate, colorless; cheilocystidia scattered, often rare, 15-20 microns long, obscurely clavate to Y-shaped, densely diverticulate apically, similar to some pileipellis elements; gill trama: hyphae similar to those of the cap trama with a core of densely interwoven hyphae centrally and especially towards the cap trama areas, subhymenium interwoven; pileipellis a tangled mat of suberect to repent hyphal ends, hyphae 3-5 microns wide, densely diverticulate, clamped, colorless, inamyloid; cap trama: duplex, hyphae in the upper part 2.7-5 microns wide, loosely interwoven, noninflated, "thin-walled, clamped, incrusted in broad vague spirals or bands or patches, often tinted brownish near septa", hyphae in the lower part 2.7-3.5 microns wide, subparallel, compacted, colorless, smooth; caulopellis: hyphae 1.5-3.5 microns wide, mostly parallel, filamentous, colorless to pale brownish on basal parts, "densely diverticulated on exposed faces, at the base occasionally somewhat arched, projecting, more irregularly branched and more diverticulate", stem trama: hyphae 3.5-7.5 microns wide, parallel, broadly cylindric, thin-walled, smooth, colorless, clamped, inamyloid, (Redhead(34)), spores 6.6-9 x 3-4.2 microns, elliptic, almond-shaped, or tear-shaped; basidia 4-spored, 24-33 x 6-7.8 microns, elongate-clavate; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia scattered, 16-24 x 4.8-7.2 microns, cylindric, clavate, or irregular in outline, rarely bifid, diverticulate, colorless, inamyloid, thin-walled, diverticula "numerous, subapical and apical, short, rod-like or irregular"; cap cuticle a continuous Rameales structure, hyphae 3-9 microns wide, "interwoven, repent or erect, irregularly cylindric, lobed, often branched, diverticulate", colorless or ochraceous, "incrusted or unevenly thickened, inamyloid, thin-walled", diverticula 1.2-6 x 1.2-3.3 microns, numerous, wart-like or rod-like, rarely branched; tramal hyphae inamyloid; cortical hyphae of stem repent, densely diverticulate, hyaline or pale yellowish brown, inamyloid, diverticula 1.2-3.6 x 1.2-1.8 microns, arranged along exposed side of the hyphae, caulocystidia absent, (Desjardin)

Spore deposit:
white (Redhead(34))

Notes:
Collections were examined from BC, ID, AB, NB, NF, ON, PE, PQ, MI, NY, and UT, (Redhead(6)). It was also found in CA (Desjardin). There are 2 collections from WA at the University of Washington, one of them marked as ?

EDIBILITY

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Marasmius filopes Peck
Polyporus nidulans Fr.
Polyporus rutilans Fr.