Summary:
Section Typicae (Smith), Section Mycena (Maas Geesteranus). Features include 1) a somewhat hygrophanous, gray to gray brown, striate cap, 2) pale ashy gray gills, 3) a bluish gray or gray stem, 4) a mild to slightly farinaceous odor and taste, 5) growth on hardwood foliage, 6) elongate spores, and 7) other microscopic characters. The description is derived from Smith(1) except where noted.

Cap:
1-3(3.5)cm across, convex to obtusely bell-shaped when young, margin usually incurved, soon broadly convex with a broad low umbo or nearly flat, margin often reflexed [upturned] when old; subhygrophanous [somewhat hygrophanous], sordid grayish brown to dark gray, fading to avellaneous, pale cinereous or nearly white when old; lubricous when moist, bald, translucent-striate when fresh, sometimes becoming sulcate-striate [grooved-striate]

Flesh:
thick on disc, moderately thin on margin; watery gray

Gills:
adnate with a tooth, or adnexed when old, often separating from stem but adhering to each other forming a collar, close to subdistant, 25-34 reaching stem, 3-4 tiers of subgills, gills narrow becoming ventricose and broad (0.3-0.4cm); pale ashy gray occasionally with incarnate tinge, often with sordid brownish spots, edges colored as faces, (Smith), pale gray with a brownish shade, interveined, (Maas Geesteranus)

Stem:
4-7cm x 0.2-0.4cm, equal or narrowing downwards, round in cross-section or compressed, fragile to fairly cartilaginous, base usually curved and rooting; bluish gray when fresh, soon colored more or less as cap, sometimes pallid when old; pruinose and hoary at first, soon polished and moist, translucent, (Smith), 3-7cm x 0.1-0.2cm, (Maas Geesteranus)

Odor:
mild to slightly farinaceous

Taste:
mild to slightly farinaceous

Microscopic spores:
spores (7)8-11 x 3-4.5 microns, subcylindric [nearly cylindric] to narrowly pear-shaped, smooth, faintly amyloid; basidia 4-spored; pleurocystidia not differentiated, cheilocystidia clavate, smooth, or with obtuse, contorted projections scattered over top, 30-42 x 7-11 microns

Spore deposit:
[presumably white]

Notes:
Mycena fagetorum is a species of eastern North America (including MI, NS) and Europe, reported by Gamiet(1) from BC.

EDIBILITY