Summary:
Features include 1) a wrinkled, slimy cap that is gray-brown to gray-yellow, usually with distinct lilac or purple tones, 2) gills that are whitish then brown to purple gray with white edges, 3) a dry white stem that is silky-fibrillose below the viscid, white ring and pruinose-floccose above the ring, 4) a fuscous purple spore deposit, and 5) clavate cheilocystidia that may be doubly capitate.

Cap:
(1.5)2.5-5cm across, flat-convex, subumbonate [somewhat umbonate] to distinctly umbonate; "pale light yellow at first becoming livid-purple", darker and with tinge of lilac-brown at center, then pale gray sometimes with faint yellowish green tinge; rugulose [finely wrinkled] under dense slime, margin slightly striate or not striate, (Watling), 1.5-4cm across, hemispheric - bell-shaped when young, later bell-shaped to convex and obtusely umbonate; purple-brown to violet-brown when young and moist, gray-beige to gray-yellow when old; lubricous-viscid when young and moist, drying smooth and dull, margin with sparse, fugacious [fleeting] veil flocci when young, (Breitenbach), bell-shaped to umbilicate (Moser)

Flesh:
relatively thick below disc but thin towards margin, soft; white, (Watling), thick in cap center, thin toward margin; white, brownish under cap surface, (Breitenbach)

Gills:
adnate with decurrent tooth, not crowded; "whitish then pale chocolate becoming fuscous when bruised and finally with yellowish tinge", (Watling), "whitish then pale lilaceous chocolate brown", (Courtecuisse), purple-gray, edges white-floccose, (Moser), notched and broadly adnate, 26-36 reaching stem, broad, 3-7 subgills between neighboring pairs of gills; "beige when young, later light brown to gray-brown with a faint purple tint", edges white-floccose, (Breitenbach)

Stem:
(4)5-7.5cm x 0.3-0.4cm, equal, stuffed or slightly hollow, "flexuous, often decumbent with a soft feel"; white; dry, almost bald, silky fibrillose below rudimentary ring, pruinose above, (Watling), 2.5-5cm x 0.2-0.4(0.5)cm, cylindric, solid, elastic; white; above the ring finely floccose, below the ring longitudinally fibrillose-floccose; ring "white, fibrillose-membranous, +/- persistent", (Breitenbach)

Veil:
partial veil forms white, thin, viscid, fleeting ring, (Watling), cap margin with sparse, fleeting veil flocci when young, ring on stem "white, fibrillose-membranous, +/- persistent, upper and lower surfaces white floccose-fibrillose", (Breitenbach)

Odor:
faint, none or slightly disagreeable, (Watling), faint, not distinctive, (Breitenbach)

Taste:
faint, none or slightly disagreeable, (Watling), mild, +/- fungoid, (Breitenbach)

Microscopic spores:
spores 7.5-8.5 x 4-5(6) microns, elliptic, dull fuscous purple, germ pore indistinct or lacking; basidia 25-27 x 7.5-8 microns, subclavate; pleurocystidia immersed in gill tissue, 30-40 x 8-10 microns, "clavate with a short pointed tip", "strongly blueing in cotton blue solution", cheilocystidia 35-40 x 9-10 microns, irregular, flexuose, +/- swollen to capitate; cap cuticle "of very narrow, filamentous hyphae immersed in a gelatinized matrix seated on cylindric hyphae"; clamp connections present, (Watling), spores 7-9.1 x 4.2-5 microns, elliptic, "smooth, yellow-brown, thick-walled, without a distinct germ pore"; basidia 4-spored, 20-28 x 6-7 microns, cylindric-clavate, without basal clamp connection; pleurocystidia 30-50 x 7-10 microns, modified as chrysocystidia, "clavate-fusiform, some with an apical protrusion", cheilocystidia abundant, 27-35 x 7-13 microns, "polymorphic, capitate, gnarled and some doubly capitate"; cap cuticle an ixocutis of fragments of gelatinized hyphae, 2-5 microns wide, yellowish- pigmented, some septa with clamp connections, all embedded in gelatinous material, (Breitenbach)

Spore deposit:
fuscous purple (Watling), purple-brown (Breitenbach)

Notes:
There are collections from WA at the University of Washington and a collection from BC at the University of British Columbia. It is also found in Europe.

EDIBILITY