Cap: width 5-20 mm. Stem: width 2 mm; length 10-20 mm.
Description:
Cap: variable in colour, straw-colour, cream-colour, bistre or grey, convex then flat or slightly depressed, radially grooved to the centre when moist; the margin is scalloped.
Stem: slender, similarly coloured to the cap, except for a brownish wine-coloured zone at the very apex, thickened upwards and smooth with a white and woolly base.
Gills: adnate to decurrent, white then cream-colour or yellowish, triangular in shape, very distant and often connected by veins.
Flesh: pale cream-colour.
Spore-print: white.
Spores: medium sized, hyaline under the microscope, broadly ellipsoid, or pip-shaped, not becoming bluish grey in solutions of iodine, 8-10 × 5 µm in size.
Marginal and facial cystidia: absent.
General Information: This fungus is common and often in large troops on peaty ground in woods as well as in moorland and mountain regions. In mountains O. ericetorum must be carefully distinguished from some of the truly mountain species of Omphalina dealt with on [p. 236]. O. wynniae (Berkeley & Broome) P. D. Orton is similar but pale lemon-yellow and is found on stumps of conifers. The word ericetorum refers to the habit of growing on heaths—Erica is the Latin name for heath. In many books this same fungus is called O. umbellifera which reflects the shape of the cap—umbrella shaped.