Summary:
Section Cyanescentes (Smith), which is equivalent in species to Section Amictae (Maas Geesteranus). Mycena amicta is characterized by a bluish or greenish color, and even when it has lost that color it is identifiable by its thick separable cap skin, close gills, downy stem, elliptic spores, and narrow cheilocystidia. The disc area is often 2-toned, with the more deeply colored disc area changing fairly abruptly to the lighter marginal area. When growing on conifer logs, the fruiting body is large and brightly colored. The description is derived from Smith except where noted. It is not uncommon in the Pacific Northwest.

Cap:
0.5-2.5cm across, obtusely conic, becoming conic - bell-shaped with an obtuse umbo, margin appressed against stem by narrow band, '"olivaceous black (1)" on disc and "light mineral gray" on the margin, often with strong aeruginous to bluish tints pervading through the olive gray, disc in large specimens "dark orient blue" and the margin "light glaucous blue", soon fading to livid gray', when old all forms becoming '"wood brown" to "avellaneous" (pale grayish brown) on the disc and "tilleul buff" (pallid) on the margin, in some the disc becoming tinged vinaceous gray', surface pruinose becoming polished then granulose, pellicle [cap skin] thick, tenacious, separable, (Smith), 'olivaceous black on the disc and grey on the margin with strong bluish tints showing through, soon fading to livid gray [sic] then to brown tones', (Miller, A.)

Flesh:
thin, cartilaginous; pallid

Gills:
narrowly adnate to free, close (20-30 reaching stem), narrow, 0.15-0.25cm broad; whitish becoming pale avellaneous

Stem:
3-8cm x 0.1-0.25cm, ''equal, hollow, fairly fragile'', ''pallid to sordid brownish gray (sometimes bright blue when young), hoary from a dense pruinose-pubescent covering, color beneath the pubescence dark greenish to bluish gray and soon fading to brownish gray''; base somewhat strigose [hairy] with blue or white strands of mycelium

Microscopic spores:
spores 7-9(10) x 4-5 microns, narrowly elliptic, smooth, amyloid; basidia 4-spored; pleurocystidia absent or not differentiated, cheilocystidia abundant, narrowly fusoid [spindle-shaped] with only slightly tapered necks and obtuse to somewhat acute tips, becoming subfilamentous [somewhat filamentous] when old, 28-44 x 5-7 microns

Spore deposit:
whitish cream (Breitenbach quoting literature)

Notes:
Mycena amicta occurs at least in BC, WA, OR, CA, NY, and ON (Smith). Breitenbach(3) give the distribution North America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa.

EDIBILITY

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Mycena vestita Velen.