A grayish-brown, funnel-forming mushroom with decurrent creamy gills and a soft, swollen, club-shaped stem base, usually found under conifers. DNA studies moved it out of Clitocybe into the waxcap family Hygrophoraceae. Eating it with alcohol, even hours later, can trigger a disulfiram-like reaction.
Not recommended. Sometimes described as edible but unpalatable; consumed with alcohol it causes a disulfiram-like (coprine-type) reaction, with flushing and other symptoms reported 5-10 minutes after drinking even about seven hours after the meal. Unlike Coprinopsis atramentaria, the responsible compound has not been identified. It also resembles poisonous clitocyboid species.
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Habitat
Alone, scattered or in groups, mainly under conifers (pine plantations in the East), occasionally under hardwoods such as beech; summer and fall. Variously treated as saprobic or mycorrhizal.
Distribution
Widespread in Europe and Asia; widespread in North America but apparently rare or absent in the lower Rocky Mountains and the Southwest, common in eastern pine plantations and less common in the Pacific Northwest; also reported from Australia.
Characteristics
Cap: 2-10 cm, flat with a slightly inrolled margin, later depressed to vase-shaped, smooth, brown to grayish brown, darker at the center. Gills: decurrent, close to nearly distant, white to creamy, browning with age. Stem: 2.5-5 cm long, 1-3 cm thick at the base, usually bulbous and spongy below, buff to pale brownish, with white basal mycelium. Flesh: white, unchanging. Odor: fragrant and fruity, or not distinctive. Spore print: white. Microscopic: spores ellipsoid, smooth, inamyloid, 6-10 x 3-3.5 µm; clamp connections present.
