On needles beds and among debris of coniferous trees, particularly Pinus on poor soil. It can be found from May to late autumn. See Aronsen (1987). It is generally a rather rare species in Europe but can locally be quite common. Widely distributed in south Norway.

Pileus 7-15 mm across, hemisherical to parabolical, flattening with age, often somewhat depressed at the centre or with a low umbo, glabrous, sulcate, translucent-striate, lubricous, pale brown to brown, darker at the centre, often sepia brown at the centre and grey-brown towards the margin. Lamellae 16-20 reaching the stipe, ascending to subhorizontal, broadly adnate to somewhat decurrent, with age somewhat rugulose and dorsally intervenose, white, grey-white to pale brownish. Stipe 20-60 x 1-2 mm, hollow, equal or at times somewhat wider at the apex, terete, straight to somewhat flexuous, cartilaginous, delicately pruinose above, glabrous for the greater part, shiny when dry, glutinous when wet, sometimes with a slimy coating, grey to brown or yellowish brown, paler to whitish above, darker towards the base, which is covered with white fibrils. Odour none.

Basidia 22-27 x 7-8 µm, slender-clavate, 4-spored, with sterigmata up to 7 µm long. Spores 7-9 x 3.5-5 µm, Q 1.7-2.2, Qav~1.9, pip-shaped to subcylindrical, smooth, amyloid. Cheilocystidia 13-33 x 6-12 µm, forming a sterile band, clavate, short- to long-stalked, covered with narrow to fairly coarse, short to longer, straight to curved, simple to branched, cylindrical excrescences 0.5-10 x 0.5-1.5 µm. Pleurocystidia similar. Lamellar trama vinescent in Melzer's reagent. Hyphae of the pileipellis 2-5 µm wide, embedded in gelatinous matter, covered with simple to branched, cylindrical excrescences, tending to form dense masses. Hyphae of the cortical layer of the stipe 2-3 µm wide, embedded in gelatinous matter, sparsely to densely covered with cylindrical excrescences up to 4 µm long, the terminal cells 3-5 µm wide, sparsely to densely diverticulate. Clamp connections present in all tissues.

Microphotos of cheilocystidia

Mycena clavicularis is a member of sect. Cinerellae. The adnate, somewhat decurrent lamellae and the glutinous stipe are typical characters. The cheilocystidia with generally numerous, evenly spaced, usually regularly shaped and narrow excrescences will also identify this species. It may be confused with Mycena vulgaris, a species that equally has a glutinous to viscid stipe, but in the latter both the pileus as well as the stipe are covered with a separable, gelatinous pellicle, and the lammellar edge can be separated as an elastic-tough thread. The cheilocystidia are also completely different.

Further images on the internet: