Summary:
Features include 1) a hygrophanous, glutinous, olive-green, conic-bellshaped cap, 2) free to adnexed, close, broad gills that are pale yellow or greenish buff when young, 3) a deeply rooting, usually stuffed stem that is pale olive-buff on its upper part and rusty red below, 4) a mild taste, 5) spores that are lemon-shaped and coarsely ornamented except over the pronounced pointed apical beak, 6) cheilocystidia that are lageniform to tibiiform, some capitulate, and that have thick walled narrow necks, 7) a 2-layered cap cuticle with a subpellis that has diffuse and encrusting pigments which immediately turn orange in KOH, and 8) absent clamp connections. It is uncommon (Norvell(11)).

Cap:
2-5cm across, obtusely umbonate to broadly bell-shaped; "dark green to olive-green fading to olive-tan", margin pale; margin faintly striate when mature, (Castellano), 2-5cm across, abrupt obtuse umbo, then flat or flat-umbonate, margin inrolled at first; hygrophanous, olive green, fading to "deep olive-buff" [Ridgway(1) color] or paler, the margin buffy-brown when mature; bald, glutinous, (Smith), about 2.5-7.5(10)cm across, "acutely convex with incurved to slightly inrolled edge" to conic - bell-shaped with slightly incurved to straight edge; hygrophanous, when young uniformly to mottled dark olive-green or zonate with darker disc and brighter yellowish green margin, often with a duller greenish olive to greenish brown edge, when old darkening to dark olive to olive-brown, dried cap metallic orange-brown, often with dark reddish brown disc; "viscid to glutinous, smooth, bald, faintly striatulate", (Norvell(11))

Flesh:
pale olive, fading to whitish, (Smith), 0.2-0.6cm thick at disc, gradually thinning over gills, cartilaginous; dull yellow to pale greenish white; in young stem "stuffed with closely compacted silky pale greenish to pinkish-buff pith", when old sometimes hollow or insect infested, cartilaginous rind about 0.2cm thick, (Norvell(11))

Gills:
nearly free, broad when mature; pale at first, pale cinnamon-brown when mature, uneven edges when mature, (Castellano), "deeply adnexed to practically free, close, broad at maturity"; pallid when young, pale cinnamon-brown when mature; edges uneven, (Smith), free to deeply adnexed; pale yellow or greenish buff when young, dark greenish brown when old; with eroded edges when old, (Norvell(11), gills also described as "dull to ochraceous yellow")

Stem:
up to 15cm long overall, with part above ground up to 4-5cm long, 0.5-0.8(1)cm wide at top of stem, more or less equal, hollow; pale olive in upper part becoming rusty red from the ground up; pseudorhiza "tapered, long, unbranched, rusty red", (Castellano), 8-15cm x 0.5-0.8(1)cm, equal, cartilaginous, soon hollow, tapered into a long pseudorhiza; pale olive-buff on top part, rusty red on lower part; naked, (Smith), about 3-7cm long above ground, retrieved length with pseudorhiza up to 23.5cm before breaking off, 0.4-1.3cm wide at top of stem, stuffed when young, sometimes hollow or insect infested when old, upper part equal or slightly narrowing or widening to ground level, pseudorhiza unbranched or sequential-racemose [branching in a series, each branch giving rise to a single fruitbody], continuous with stem and tapering (sometimes abruptly) to an easily broken cord-like origin; young apex greenish to pinkish buff, darkening when old, grading to dark green to yellow-brown / red-brown at ground level, often staining brown where bruised, pseudorhiza dark orange to red-brown; stem dry to moist, "shiny beneath short fibrillose patches", (Norvell(11))

Veil:
veil remnants usually evident "as abundant short gold or greenish brown fibrillose patches" on the upper stem, (Norvell(11))

Odor:
pungent but fleeting, (Castellano, Smith), mild, occasionally sweetly nutty or complex with subtle floral - boiled potato components, (Norvell(11) who also say "The odor can at best be described as ''not distinctive'', and we have not encountered the ''fleetingly pungent'' odor noted by Smith. We have detected a pleasant sugary sweet odor (vaguely reminiscent of maple syrup and not uncommon in dried phaeocollybias) in dried specimens.")

Taste:
not distinct (Castellano, Smith, Norvell(11))

Microscopic spores:
spores 7-9 x 5-6 microns, ovate with abrupt apical beak in face view, "moderately coarsely ornamented except over the smooth apical beak", cheilocystidia "refractive, capitulate, lageniform to tibiiform elements with thick walled narrow necks"; clamp connections absent, (Castellano), spores 7-9 x 5-6 microns, "ovate with an abrupt apical beak in face view, broadly inequilateral in side view (the apical beak showing as well as the apiculus)", warty-roughened under oil immersion, ochraceous tawny in KOH, pale tawny in Melzer''s reagent; basidia 4-spored, 23-28 x 7-8 microns, yellowish in Melzer''s reagent; cheilocystidia abundant, 25-34 x 4-9 x 1.5-2.5 microns, with a colorless basal enlarged part that "narrows into a thin neck and apex acute to minutely capitate, the walls of the neck thickened and ochraceous in KOH, highly refractive"; cap trama floccose and brownish (in KOH) beneath a gelatinous, collapsed trichodermium of narrow (2-3 microns), colorless hyphae; clamp connections absent, (Smith), spores (6.5)7-9(9.5) x (4)4.5-5.5 microns, average 8 x 5 microns, in face view "ovate with long narrow beak", in side view inequilaterally lemon-shaped with central beak and eccentric apiculus, "verrucose to rugulose warty roughened" except on smooth, long (0.5-1.0 microns) apical beak, in KOH medium amber, in water paler, in Melzer''s reagent inamyloid and non-dextrinoid; basidia 4-spored, about 25-32 x 6-9 microns, clavate, "granular, colorless to pale amber in KOH"; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia "abundant, arising from the subhymenium and intermixed with basidia", 25-80 microns long, thin-walled 3-7 microns wide base subtending long (12-20 microns), thick-walled, narrow (0.5-2.0 microns) neck, with or without slightly wider (up to 2.5 microns wide) capitulum, apex or capitulum "often either obscured by gelatinous secretory drops or gel-encrusted", the thin-walled base usually colorless, and highly refractive neck and capitulum usually pale greenish in water and ochraceous in KOH; cap cuticle a 2-layered ixocutis, the 100-250 microns thick suprapellis of radially aligned, narrow (1-3 microns wide), highly gelatinized, colorless hyphae in a thick gelatinous matrix, the subpellis diffusely pigmented, with wide (8-15 microns wide), gelatinized hyphae "encrusted by pale greenish amber pigments that turn pale to deep orange in KOH", amber to orange oleifers also present; tibiiform diverticula abundant on mycelium, primordial and pseudorhizal surfaces, and fibrillose patches on upper stem, tibiiform, 5-20 x 1 x 0.5 microns, colorless to pale ochraceous; clamp connections absent in all tissues, (Norvell(11))

Spore deposit:
pinkish cinnamon brown (Norvell(11))

Notes:
Phaeocollybia pseudofestiva has been found in BC, WA, OR, and northern CA, (Norvell(6)). It is known from about 35 sites, (Norvell(11)).

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