macroscopy:
Pileus 10-40 mm, hemispherical, conico-convex to convex with subinvolute to deflexed margin, slightly expanding with age to plano-convex, hygrophanous, (sub-)viscid when moist, not translucently striate, ochraceous, stramineous to yellow-brown (Mu. 10 YR 6/8, at margin 10 YR 7/6), pallescent to pale yellow, appendiculate with whitish velar patches at margin. Lamellae, L = 20-40, l = 3-7, moderately distant, adnate, pale then dark red-brown (10 YR 5/3), finally blackish brown, with white, fimbriate edge. Stipe 30-90 x 1-6 mm, yellow-brown, with weak to distinct annuliform zone or narrow, fibrillose annulus, pruinose at apex, flocculose to densely woolly-fibrillose with yellowish white fibrils below annulus. Context pallid in inner parts. Smell indistinct to rather strong, reminiscent of chocolate. Taste mild. Spore print very dark blackish brown with purple sheen (10 R 2.5/1).
microscopy:
Spores 10.5-12.5(-14.0) x 6.0-8.0 x 6.0-7.5 µm, Q = 1.4-1.7, Qav = 1.5-1.6, hexagonal in frontal view; Q = 1.5-1.8, Qav = 1.6-1.7, ellipsoid to oblong in side-view; with up to 1.5 µm thick, brown wall, with large germ pore. Basidia 18-28 x 5-10 µm, 4-spored, clamped. Lamella edge sterile. Cheilocystidia 18-45 x 5.0-9.0 µm, lageniform with acute apex and 1.0-4.0 µm wide neck. Pleurocystidia absent. Pileipellis an up to 100 µm thick ixocutis of narrow, 1.0-3.5 µm wide, cylindrical hyphae. Pigment pale brown, membranal and incrusting in subpellis. Stipitipellis a cutis with transitions to a trichoderm, made up of more or less cylindrical, 3.0-8.5 µm wide hyphae. Caulocystidia abundant at apex of stipe, subcylindrical to irregularly clavate to subcoralloid, 20-45 x 3.0-7.5 µm, with thin- to slightly thickened, hyaline or pale yellow wall. Acanthocytes very sparse in basal mycelium, up to 35 µm in diam. Clamp-connections abundant.
ecology:
Saprotrophic, gregarious on dung of herbivores (horse, cow, sheep, rabbit) in grasslands and in open woods.June-Nov.
distribution:
Widespread all over the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere, mainly on herbivorous dung, but also recorded from very rich substrate, such as garden compost, sawdust, and manured soil in gardens.