Summary:
Features include 1) a small, flattened-cylindric or umbilicate cap that is yellowish brown with a dark brown disc and striae, 2) thin brownish flesh, 3) horizontal, well-spaced, narrow, yellowish to brown gills, 4) a thread-like, tough stem that is similarly colored to the cap, and 5) microscopic characters. Mycena picta is rarely identified in the Pacific Northwest.

Cap:
0.2-0.5cm across, 0.5-1cm high, cylindric or with flaring margin, not expanding, disc flattened and circumscribed by dark line; "Brussels brown" over disc and striae, the rest yellowish; moist, bald, striate to the disc, (Smith), 0.3-0.6cm across, 0.2-0.5cm high, cylindric - bell-shaped, cylindric, center distinctly umbilicate, not expanded when old, margin somewhat undulating [wavy]; dark brown, becoming paler toward margin, umbilicus somewhat darker; smooth, dark striate-furrowed almost to center, (Breitenbach)

Flesh:
very thin; yellowish to brownish under the disc, (Smith), membranous; watery dark brown, (Breitenbach)

Gills:
attached to the enlarged upper part of the stem by inner margins, (the only free portion of the margin is that between the stem and cap margin, actually only the outer extremity of the gill), gills subdistant to distant, 15-18 reaching the stem, only one tier, narrow; near "warm buff" (yellow), (Smith), broadly adnate, 20-22 reaching stem, broad, the smooth gill edge extending almost horizontally from the margin to the stem; cafe-au-lait brown when young, darker when old, finds with colored gill edges have been described, (Breitenbach)

Stem:
2-6cm long, filiform [thread-like] or up to 0.1cm thick, top abruptly inflated 0.25cm for a distance as long as the cap is high, "equal below, very rigid, cartilaginous"; colored as cap; bald, "with sparse tawny mycelium around the base", (Smith), 2-3.5cm x 0.1-0.15cm, cylindric, filiform (slightly widened at top), cartilaginous; red-brown, dark brown toward the base; smooth, without basal disc or anchor hyphae (although forms with those features are described), (Breitenbach)

Odor:
not distinctive, (Smith), none (Breitenbach)

Taste:
slight, (Smith), mild (Breitenbach)

Microscopic spores:
spores (7)8-10(11) x 4-5(5.5) microns, elliptic to subovoid (immature spores may appear broadly fusoid), pale gray blue in Melzer''s reagent; basidia 4-spored, 16-18(20) x 8-10 microns, colorless in KOH, yellowish in Melzer''s reagent; no pleurocystidia seen, cheilocystidia 15-20 x 10-14 microns, clavate to broadly ellipsoid, apices studded with short rod-like projections; "gill trama of irregular enlarged hyphae dingy brown to ochraceous in KOH, subhymenium cellular but elements smaller than in trama proper", in Melzer''s reagent pale orange brown, especially in central part; cap trama with a hypoderm of greatly enlarged cells staining rusty red in Melzer''s reagent "and a lower narrow zone similar to gill trama, in small caps the lower zone reduced to a subhymenial zone, in KOH merely ochraceous"; thin rudimentary pellicle (ochraceous in KOH) covering the cap surface at least in large caps, (Smith), spores 6.4-9.0 x 3.8-5.1 microns, elliptic, smooth, colorless, iodine positive; basidia (2)4-spored, 17-21 x 7-9 microns, cylindric-clavate, with basal clamp connection; "cheilocystidia" (=hyphal ends) 11-20 x 10-17 microns, subglobose [nearly spherical] to pyriform, with simple to somewhat diverticulate outgrowths; cap cuticle of parallel hyphae, the uppermost 2 microns wide, deeper hyphae short-celled, 6-8 microns wide; septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach)

Spore deposit:
whitish (Buczacki)

Notes:
The distribution includes WA, MI, and TN, (Smith(45)). It is known from WA, OR, AK, and MI, (Miller(17)). A collection from BC is at the University of British Columbia and there is another at Pacific Forestry Centre. It has also been found in Europe including Switzerland (Breitenbach) and Japan (Miyamoto).

EDIBILITY

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Omphalina picta (Fr.) Quel.
Xeromphalina picta (Fr.) A.H. Sm.