Stem: pale buff, tough, flexible and smooth.
Gills: adnexed, pale cream colour or pinkish buff and fairly distant.
Flesh: whitish or pinkish tan, smelling of cherry laurel (cyanic).
Spore-print: white.
Spores: medium sized, hyaline, pip-shaped, smooth, not staining bluish grey when mounted in solutions containing iodine and about 10 × 6 µm in size (9-11 × 5-6 µm).
Marginal and facial cystidia: absent.
Habitat & Distribution: This agaric is very common from May to October on lawns and grass-verges.
General Information: M. oreades forms well developed fairy-rings, and is easily recognised by its tough nature, pale colours and ability to revive after having been dried. This ability to revive in moist weather even after the fruit-body has been dried by the sun or wind is a character which was used to distinguish members of the genus Marasmius. However, this is a very subjective character and since microscopic techniques were introduced and used widely in the study of agarics the genus has been delimited rather more critically. Marasmius is close to Collybia ([p. 90]), in fact many species appear in one book in one genus and in another book in the second genus; M. oreades itself is not a typical member of the genus. Marasmius seems to be a much more important genus in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world; we have already mentioned how some of the small species of Marasmius in Europe grow only on leaves of a particular plant (see [p. 92]). M. androsaceus (Fries) Fries (see [p. 231]) is the horse-hair fungus.
Illustrations: F 19a; Hvass 81; LH 115; NB 351; WD 2410 (not very good).
Plate 37. Fleshy fungi reviving when moistened even after drying: Spores white and borne on gills