Summary:
Features include 1) minute basidiomycete fruitbodies that are cup-shaped and white to bluish gray with white surface hairs, the spore-bearing upper surface white to cream color, 2) absent stem, 3) growth on herbaceous litter and twigs of woody plants and hardwoods, and 4) microscopic characters including basidia.

Microscopic:
spores 7-12 x 5-9 microns, ovate to cylindric, flattened on one side, apiculate, smooth, colorless; surface hairs colorless, 100-275(500) x 3-8 microns, densely, finely granule-incrusted, occasionally ending in a whip-lash, tapering to a point; context hyphae 3-4 microns in diameter, clamped; subhymenial hyphae 2-3 microns in diameter; basidia 26-50 x 6-10 microns, 4-spored, clamped at the base, (Cooke), spores 10-15 x 7-10 microns, broad obconic, adaxially faintly flattened, with distinct, blunt, eccentric apiculus; basidia 2-4-spored, 40-60 x 9-11 microns; ''basidioles'' numerous, "originally subcylindrical with tapering top, then becoming inflated at middle and spindle-shaped, finally like the basidia but with apical nipple"; hairs in KOH about 150-200 x 4.75-6 microns, colorless, "with asperulated surface, the full-grown ones with very thick walls and capillary lumen (lumen somewhat widening in the tip), many with deformed portions which are much swollen and very transparent (asperulation has disappeared) and have a thread-like or vanished lumen", (Donk)

Notes:
Lachnella villosa collections were examined from BC (Redhead), OR, CA, SC, VA, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, China, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Australia, and the Philippines, (Cooke).

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Suillus borealis "A.H. Sm., Thiers, and O.K. Mill."