Summary:
The uniquely glutinous veil distinguishes this species from its lookalikes, but see also Stropharia semigloboides. Features include a viscid to slimy, yellow to yellow-brown cap that may be hemispheric, gills that are grayish, then dark purple-brown to black, a stem that is slender, viscid or slimy, white to yellowish, with a fragile fibrillose ring or zone, growth with dung, manure, straw, grazed or fertilized grass or rich soil, and a dark purple-brown spore deposit.

Cap:
1-5(6)cm across, hemispheric or broadly bell-shaped, becoming convex or rarely flat; pale yellow to straw-colored, yellowish buff, or yellow-brown, margin often paler; smooth, viscid or slimy when moist, margin "sometimes hung with whitish veil remnants"^, (Arora), occasionally with umbo, not hygrophanous, viscid to glutinous from separable gelatinous pellicle, (Stamets)

Flesh:
thin; pale or watery yellowish^, (Arora), not bruising (Stamets)

Gills:
typically adnate but sometimes separating; "at first grayish, then dark purple-brown to black", (Arora), adnate, broad, close to subdistant, with 1 to 2 tiers of subgills; gill edges remaining pale to whitish, (Stamets)

Stem:
5-8(13)cm x 0.2-0.6cm, typically long and slender, equal or slightly widened at base; white to yellowish; "somewhat fibrillose above the veil, viscid or slimy below (when moist)", (Arora), stuffed with yellowish pith at first becoming hollow when old, no bruising reaction, (Stamets), smooth above the ring (Breitenbach), pruinose above the ring (Desjardin)

Veil:
"slimy, delicate, forming a fragile, superior, fibrillose ring or zone" on stem which is soon blackened by falling spores, cap margin sometimes hung with whitish veil remnants, (Arora)

Odor:
none (Breitenbach), mealy (Lincoff), clean, spicy, like fenugreek, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen)

Taste:
mild, insipid (Breitenbach), sweetish (Lincoff)

Microscopic spores:
spores 15-19 x 7.5-10 microns, elliptic, smooth; chrysocystidia on gills, (Arora), spores 15-19 x 8-10 microns; basidia 4-spored; pleurocystidia difficult to find, 32-46 x 9-14 microns, cheilocystidia 26-38 x 6-9 microns, narrowly fusoid-ventricose with a long flexuous [wavy] neck, (Stamets), spores 15.6-20.1 x 8.3-11.6 microns, elliptic, "smooth gray-brown, thick-walled, with a germ pore"; basidia 4-spored, 33-41 x 12-15 microns, clavate or ventricose, without a basal clamp connection; pleurocystidia modified as chrysocystidia, 35-60 x 10-20 microns, "clavate to fusiform, some with an apical protrusion", cheilocystidia very abundant, 45-75 x 6-10 microns, narrowly fusiform-lageniform, ventricose towards base, with long neck, with rare interspersed fusiform-clavate chrysocystidia, 30 x 10 microns, or none; cap cuticle an ixocutis of +/- periclinal, gelatinized hyphae 2-5 microns wide, colorless, embedded in slimy material, septa with clamp connections; subcutis of periclinal hyphae 3-7 microns wide, with light yellow pigment and encrusted, septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach)

Spore deposit:
dark purple-brown to black (Arora), violet-black (Breitenbach)

Notes:
Stamets says it is widely distributed throughout North America and much of the temperate regions of the world. Murrill reported it from WA and CA. There are collections from BC and AB at the University of British Columbia, and a collection from OR at Oregon State University. The University of Washington has collections from WA, ID, AK, CA, MT, NY, and Australia. Breitenbach(4) gave the distribution as North America, Europe, Asia, North Africa, and Australia.

EDIBILITY

yes, but mediocre, (Arora), not hallucinogenic (Stamets), easy to confuse with poisonous species

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Stropharia semiglobata (Batsch) Quel.