Summary:
Features include 1) small size, 2) a brownish violet to lavender, umbonate, dry cap, 3) cap-colored flesh, 4) free to adnexed, violet to lavender gills, 5) a slender, rooting stem colored as the cap and white-pruinose to white-furfuraceous on its upper part, 6) a mild odor and taste, 7) a white spore deposit, and 8) small, elliptic to nearly round spores that are smooth and sometimes dextrinoid. Note basidia are 4-spored in Redhead''s description for BC, and 2-spored in the Hansen, L.(2) description for Europe.

Cap:
0.3-0.6cm across, convex to subconic with small umbo; livid vinaceous to lavender; "dry, silky, opaque", (Redhead(30)), 0.5-1.4cm across, hemispheric then convex with umbo; when young deep brownish-lilac, when old beige-lilac; striate when moist, (Moser), 0.3-1.3cm across, umbonate, collybioid to mycenoid; violet to brownish violet, paler at margin; innately radially fibrillose, smooth, matte, (Hansen)

Flesh:
fleshy; colored as cap, (Redhead(30)), violet (Hansen)

Gills:
ascending adnexed, moderately spaced, moderate breadth, ventricose, subgills in 1 tier; grayish lavender, (Redhead(30)), free [according to generic character]; dark lilac-brown, brown when old, (Moser), free to adnexed, rather broad and crowded; violet, (Hansen)

Stem:
2-3cm x 0.02-0.05cm, equal with a tapered rooting base, cartilaginous; dark purple to purple slate, sparsely covered with paler flecks, (Redhead(30)), 3-7cm x 0.05-0.1cm, colored as cap, then brown, (Moser), 1-3cm x 0.1-0.15cm, tapering downwards into a pseudorhiza; violet; white-pruinose to white-furfuraceous in upper part, (Hansen)

Odor:
not distinctive (Redhead(30)), indistinct (Hansen)

Taste:
indistinct (Hansen)

Microscopic spores:
spores 3.5-4 microns x 2.9-3.1 microns, broadly elliptic to subglobose [nearly round], smooth with slightly thickened walls, appearing colorless from mounts of gills, with purplish walls when deposited on the cap or stem, a few dextrinoid before or after clearing by alkaline solutions, usually with one droplet; basidia 4-spored, 15.5-18 x 5.8-6.0 microns, clavate, simple-septate; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia not mentioned; cap cuticle hyphae 4.5-5 microns wide, repent, subhyaline [nearly colorless], thin-walled, smooth, simple-septate, "with undifferentiated to scarcely differentiated apices, in some subcapitate or sublecythiform"; caulocystidia 25-35 x 9.5-10 microns, fusoid to clavate, sometimes constricted centrally, thin-walled, collapsing readily, subhyaline [nearly colorless], (Redhead(30)), spores 3.2-4 x 2.8-3.2 microns, [smooth, with no germ pore; clamp connections absent, these according to the generic characters given], (Moser), spores 3-4 x 2.5-3.5 microns, elliptic to nearly round, dextrinoid; basidia 2-spored; cheilocystidia and pleurocystidia not mentioned in microscopic description; tramal hyphae dextrinoid; cap cuticle of radially repent hyphae, 5-25 microns wide, with pale brown membrane pigment; clamp connections absent, (Hansen)

Spore deposit:
white (Moser, Hansen)

Notes:
Pseudobaeospora pillodii has been found in BC, France, Switzerland, and the USSR, (Redhead(30)).

EDIBILITY

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Collybia pillodii Quel.