Summary: Features include 1) small size, 2) a dark reddish brown, viscid, peelable cap, 3) somewhat decurrent, well-spaced gills that become purple-brown with whitish fringed edges, 4) a pallid pinkish tan to cap-colored stem that is covered with pallid fibrils and the lower part often with minute fibrillose scales, 5) growth on dung, 6) a purplish brown spore deposit, and 7) microscopic characters.
Gills: subdecurrent [somewhat decurrent], distant to subdistant, broad; becoming purple-brown when old with the edges whitish-fringed, (Stamets), "broad adnate or subadnate to decurrent"; "dark purple brown to violaceous blackish brown", but with white fimbriate [fringed] edges, (Guzman(1))
Stem: 1-2(4)cm x 0.05-0.2cm, equal, flexuous [wavy]; pallid pinkish tan or nearly cap-colored; surface covered with pallid fibrils and the lower parts often with minute fibrillose scales, base "usually adorned with tufts of mycelium", (Stamets), (1)2-4cm x (0.05)0.1-0.2cm, equal or somewhat subbulbous, delicate, somewhat flexuous [wavy]; "whitish to pallid pinkish or reddish brown"; "covered at first with whitish fibrils", base with white floccose mycelium, (Guzman(1))
Veil: partial veil thin, cortinate, (Stamets), arachnoid [cobweb-like] and white when young, fleeting and soon inconspicuous except for floccose appressed fibrils on cap and stem, (Guzman(1))
Odor: slightly fungoid or mild (Guzman(1))
Taste: slightly fungoid or mild (Guzman(1))
Microscopic spores: spores 12-15 x 5-8 microns, smooth, narrowly elliptic; basidia 4-spored, pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia present, (Stamets), spores (12)13.2-14.3(16.5) (18.7!) x (5)6.6-7.7(8.8) microns, subelliptic or narrowly elliptic, thick-walled, yellowish brown with distinct apical germ pore; basidia 4-spored, 15-30 x 7-9 microns, subventricose, colorless; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia abundant, 24-40 x 4-8 microns, sublageniform or lageniform, thin walled, with a narrow and long neck 1.5-2 microns, often capped with colorless mucilage (which dissolves in KOH); clamp connections present, (Guzman(1)), spores 11-14 x 6-7 microns, subelliptic, wall 1-1.5 microns thick, broad germ pore; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia 30-42 x (6)7-10 microns, lageniform, (Guzman(4))
Spore deposit: dark purplish brown (Stamets)
Notes: Guzman(1) examined collections from WA, ID, and CO. There are collections from BC at the University of British Columbia. It has also been reported also from OR (Stamets(1)).
EDIBILITY
suspected to be active, but specimens not yet analyzed, (Stamets)
Habitat and Range
SIMILAR SPECIES
Deconica subcoprophila is similar and differs mainly in the size of the spores, (13)14-18(22) x (6.5)7.7-8.8(9.9) microns and cheilocystidia 33-40(50) x 8.8-10(12) microns, (Guzman).
Habitat
single to several on dung of "sheep, cows, horses, elk, marmots, and other animals", spring and fall, (Stamets), single or scattered "on dung (cattle, sheep, horse, or wild animals such as elk or marmot)", spring to fall, (Guzman(1)), "on dung, mainly pellets of deer and elk, but also grows on horse dung, in temperate forests or alpine meadows", (Guzman(4))