Summary:
Section Typicae (Smith), Section Mycena (Maas Geesteranus). Mycena maculata 1) grows bundled on wood, 2) often has a rooting stem, and 3) often develops sordid reddish stains, but some specimens are not spotted. Other features include 4) a somewhat hygrophanous, lubricous, striate cap that is black-brown to gray-brown sometimes with yellowish or olivaceous shades, often becoming streaked or spotted with reddish brown, 5) flesh that often changes slowly to sordid reddish brown when cut or bruised, 6) elastic, tough gills that are pale brownish gray sometimes turning pinkish gray and in the end becoming brownish flesh color or more vinaceous and reddish-brown-spotted, 7) a stem that is whitish to grayish in upper part and gray brown lower down, when old turning to dark reddish brown or purple-brown, and 8) microscopic characters. The description here is adapted from Maas Geesteranus, except where specified. Smith calls it the most abundant Mycena on conifer wood in the Pacific Northwest. He also describes Mycena occidentalis distinguished by absence of root and absence of reddish stains on gills and cap, as well as a tendency for the cheilocystidia to remain smooth, but Maas Geesteranus includes this species in Mycena maculata.

Cap:
up to 4.5cm across, conic-convex to bell-shaped, with or without a small umbo; somewhat hygrophanous, black-brown to paler or darker gray-brown or sepia brown, sometimes with yellowish or olivaceous shades, darker at center, paler at margin, when old becoming streaked or spotted with reddish brown, the margin sometimes turning faintly purplish; bald, translucent-striate, sulcate [grooved], (Maas Geesteranus), lubricous (Smith), margin sometimes uplifted when old (Arora)

Flesh:
up to approximately 0.1cm thick, watery sepia brown under cap surface, whitish farther below, (Maas Geesteranus), thickish under the umbo but abruptly thinner over marginal area 0.015cm), cartilaginous and firm; "dark or pale watery gray, changing slowly to sordid reddish brown when cut or bruised", (Smith)

Gills:
broadly adnate with decurrent tooth or emarginate-adnate, ascending, 18-21 reaching stem, up to nearly 0.4cm, elastic-tough, interveined; pale gray with some sepia brown shade sometimes turning pinkish gray, in the end becoming brownish - flesh-color or somewhat more vinaceous and stained with reddish brown spots, the edges whitish at first then colored as faces; smooth to rugulose [wrinkled]

Stem:
4-10cm x 0.1-0.3cm, equal, round in cross-section to somewhat compressed, straight to curved; dingy whitish to pale grayish in upper part, sepia gray-brown farther down, sometimes fairly dark, when old turning dark reddish brown to purplish brown; smooth, somewhat pruinose in upper part, bald for the most part, shiny, densely woolly-tomentose [with dense white woolly hairs] in lower part, with the base passing into a shorter or longer root, (Maas Geesteranus), base becoming stained reddish brown to purplish or the entire lower part sordid wine color (Smith for Mycena maculata)

Odor:
absent, not distinctive, or faintly spermatic

Taste:
similar to odor, not farinaceous

Microscopic spores:
spores 8.1-9.8 x 5.2-6.3 microns, pip-shaped [elliptic], smooth, amyloid; basidia 4-spored, (24)27-38(40) x 7-9 microns, narrowly clavate, with clamp connection, sterigmata up to 7 microns long; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia forming a discontinuous sterile band, (10.5)20-40 x 4.5-10(13.5) microns, clavate to somewhat irregularly shaped, clamped, covered with a few, unevenly spaced, coarse, simple to much-branched, cylindric to variously shaped or even torulose, straight to curved or flexuous [wavy] excrescences, one or two of which may be much longer than the others, up to about 20 microns long, (Maas Geesteranus), 7-9(10) x 4-5(6) microns for M. maculata and 7-8(9.5) x 4-5(5.5) microns for M. occidentalis, (Smith)

Spore deposit:
cream-whitish (Breitenbach)

Notes:
M. maculata is found at least in BC, WA, OR, ID, CA, CO, (Smith, as M. occidentalis), WA, OR, ON, CA, CO, MI, NC, NY, TN, (Smith, as M. maculata), and Europe and North Africa (Maas Geesteranus).

EDIBILITY

unknown

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Mycena occidentalis (Murrill) Murrill
Mycena ochraceicinerea (Murrill) Murrill