Cap: reddish brown or greyish and wrinkled.
Spores: egg-shaped, 8-9 × 6-7 µm.
Except for their rather special requirements as to substrate preference, these species have in common small size, rather tough horny stems and cap composed of erect ornamented cells.
Several agarics which grow on cones have also been placed in Marasmius. They are frequent in spring and early summer the fruit-bodies being attached by a very long rooting stem and cord of fluffy hyphae to buried cones in conifers. The biology of these fungi is still unknown, but the cones to which they are attached are always closed yet buried often several inches beneath the surface of the soil. It is yet to be found whether the spores of the agaric infect the cones after they drop or whether the cones fall because they have become infected. How do the cones become so deeply buried? Are squirrels or rodents involved? All the species which grow on cones have brown or tawny caps and yellowish brown stems.
Plate 25. Fleshy fungi with wiry to tough stem: Spores white and borne on gills, fruit-body frequently reviving when moistened
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Strobilurus stephanocystis (Hora) Singer
has cystidia with rounded heads and grows on pine-cones.