Summary:
Features include 1) a viscid, brown cap that usually has dry fibrillose scales, the cap margin often hung with veil remnants, 2) adnate, close, pallid to grayish brown or brown gills, 3) a pallid to buff, dry stem that may be brownish toward the base and is covered with brown downcurved scales or patches below a slight fibrillose ring or ring zone, 4) a brown spore deposit, 5) growth in clusters or groups on the ground, and 6) microscopic characters. Pholiota terrestris is the only veiled, dull brown spored mushroom that habitually grows in clusters on the ground. (Although several Psathyrellas do habitually grow in clusters on the ground, they are dark-spored, less fleshy and generally are not scaly.) (Arora). It is common in the Pacific Northwest and CA (Trudell(4)).

Cap:
(1)2-8(10)cm across, obtusely conic or convex becoming flat or somewhat umbonate; "dark brown to light brown, grayish- or yellow-brown, or tawny, the scales darker"; "surface usually with dry fibrillose scales, but viscid or slimy in wet weather beneath the scales, which sometimes wear off", "margin sometimes streaked, often hung with veil remnants", (Arora), (1)2-8(10)cm across, obtusely conic to convex, soon obtusely umbonate, expanding with slight umbo, at times nearly flat; scales or fibrils "wood brown" along margin, near "Verona brown" on disc, when young the whole cap evenly "warm sepia" because of the fibrillose covering, at times "Prout's brown" to "cinnamon brown" when freshly mature, margin usually fibrillose-appendiculate, (Smith)

Flesh:
thin; "white to watery yellow or brown", (Arora), rather thick, about 0.4cm, pliant and somewhat cartilaginous; watery buff to brown, in stem grayish with tendency to stain yellow to brownish at base or around worm holes and occasionally where bruised or handled, (Smith)

Gills:
"attached (usually adnate), close"; at first pallid to grayish, then dull brown to dull cinnamon brown, (Arora), adnate, crowded, narrow; pallid becoming pale avellaneous and finally sometimes faintly tinged "Isabella color"; edges slightly uneven, (Smith), pale becoming grayish brown to brown, (Phillips)

Stem:
3-10(13)cm x (0.2)0.4-1cm, equal or narrowed in lower part, solid or becoming hollow; "pallid to buff, or brownish toward base", "covered with brown scales or patches below the veil"; dry, (Arora), 3-8(10)cm x (0.2)0.5-1cm, equal or narrowing in lower part, solid but soon hollow; surface covered to superior ring zone or ring by dark avellaneous recurved scales, the scales larger and more numerous upwards, the sheath "at times merely becoming broken into zones or patches instead of scales", top part fibrillose pruinose, (Smith), covered with dark brown downcurved scales, finely hairy above ring, sheath-like below, (Phillips)

Veil:
fibrillose, whitish, forming a slight, superior, fibrillose ring or zone on stem, or disappearing, (Arora)

Odor:
mild (Smith)

Taste:
mild (Smith)

Microscopic spores:
spores 4.5-7 x 3.5-4.5 microns, elliptic, smooth; chrysocystidia present on gills, (Arora), spores 4.5-6.5(7) x 3.5-4.5 microns, elliptic to broadly elliptic in face view, subelliptic to slightly bean-shaped in side view, smooth, apical germ pore distinct but small, spores dingy cinnamon in KOH, paler in Melzer''s reagent, wall rather thin (-0.25 microns estimated); basidia 2-spored or 4-spored, mostly 4-spored, (20)22-30 x 5-6.5 microns, colorless in KOH and only slightly yellowish in Melzer''s reagent; pleurocystidia abundant but mostly scarcely projecting, 18-34 x (4)5-10(12) microns, clavate, clavate-mucronate, to fusoid-ventricose, "with the typical amorphous refractive inclusion of chrysocystidia, rarely with brown content", cheilocystidia numerous, 26-50 x 4-8 microns, cylindric, cylindric-subcapitate, subutriform to fusoid-ventricose, "thin-walled, smooth, content homogeneous", colorless in KOH; caulocystidia present; clamp connections present, (Smith)

Spore deposit:
brown (Arora)

Notes:
Smith(3) examined collections from BC, WA, OR, ID, CA, MI, and WI. It was reported by Volk(3) from AK. It is said by Trudell(4) to occur also in Japan.

EDIBILITY

yes, but insipid, (Arora)