Summary:
The most distinctive feature is fruiting on moose and deer droppings; Other features include small size, a light gray cap without marginal remnants, dark gray gills, a pale ochraceous gray, pruinose stem that is brownish in its lower part, absent veil, and large spores.

Cap:
0.4-1cm across, 0.3-0.9cm high, bell-shaped to conical, rarely hemispheric; pale gray, top sometimes with a slight brownish ochraceous hue, when very young also with an olivaceous tint; not markedly hygrophanous, matte and somewhat micaceous; margin slightly crenulate [scalloped] but not appendiculate even when young, (Moser(10)), non-hygrophanous (Hansen)

Flesh:
pale gray in cap and upper part of stem, pale brownish downwards, (Moser(10))

Gills:
ascendant, not very crowded (15-20 reaching stem), one subgill between neighboring pairs of gills; dark gray, then blackish mottled from spores, edge remaining paler grayish, (Moser(10))

Stem:
2-9cm x 0.05-0.15cm, hollow, pale ochraceous-gray, brownish toward base; entirely pruinose, especially pronounced in lower half, (Moser(10))

Veil:
none (Moser(1))

Odor:
none in particular (Moser(10))

Taste:
none in particular (Moser(10))

Microscopic spores:
spores (16.3)18-19(21) x (8)9.5-10.5(12) microns in face view, (8)9-9.5(10) microns in side view, more or less elliptic in face and side view with a distinct eccentric germ pore (2-4 microns wide), smooth, dark brown; basidia 4-spored or 2-spored, 25-28(30) x 13-15(16) microns, short and thick; pleurocystidia none, cheilocystidia covering gill edge, 25-35 x 4-6(7) microns, versiform, usually with inflated base, and +/- long neck, sometimes apex slightly subcapitate; cap cuticle cellular, cells (15)20(25) microns wide, rounded to elliptic, with dispersed pileocystidia, mostly +/- bottle-shaped, often with brown wall; stem with fascicles of colorless hairs or bottle-shaped caulocystidia, shape and size depending on age; with clamp connections, (Moser(10)), spores 16-18(19) x 7-9 microns, (Moser(1)), spores 18-19 x 9.5-10.5 microns, elliptic, smooth, with eccentric pore, dark brown, (Hansen)

Notes:
Panaeolus alcis has been reported at least from BC (Paul Kroeger, pers. comm.), Moser(10) examined collections from SK and Sweden.

EDIBILITY