Fasciculate on decaying wood, fallen branches and old stumps of deciduous trees, generally Quercus. A common species in Europe. Widely distributed in southern Norway.

Pileus 10-40 mm across, parabolical or conical to campanulate, with or without an umbo, finally expanding to plano-convex, sulcate or rugulose, translucent-striate (although not always clearly visible), glabrous, viscid when moist, the margin with a crenulate brim exceeding the lamellae, whitish with creamy to pale brownish shades or dingy yellowish incarnate, gradually darkening, turning dark date brown, dark reddish brown or dark sepia brown, sometimes more silvery grey, with the centre often black-brown, paler at the margin. Lamellae 22-27(-33) reaching the stipe, ascending, adnate, decurr to veined or rugulose, with age dorsally intervenose, at first whitish, then pale sepia or pale grey-brown, finally often becoming flushed with a pink hue or becoming spotted with vinaceous stains especially near the margin of the pileus, the edge whitish to concolorous. Stipe 30-150 x 1.5-4(-6) mm, hollow, firm to tough, equal or somewhat thicker below, terete to somewhat compressed, straight to curved, smooth or finely rugulose, becoming fibrillose to floccose-fibrillose, sometimes splitting lengthwise, puberulous above, then glabrescent and shiny, silvery white to silvery grey, watery grayish white or yellowish above, sometimes more or less entirely silvery grey or turning yellow to dingy ochraceous farther down, fulvous to dark reddish brown below, finally entirely dark brown, at the base densely covered with long, coarse, whitish, wooly yellow to ochraceous fibrils. Odour often strongly farinaceous when cut, but also experienced as rancid, of cucumber or French beans. Taste similar, but also said to be acrid and disagreeable.

Basidia 24-38 x 6.5-9 µm, clavate, 4-spored, with sterigmata 4-9 µm long. Spores 7-9(-11) x 5-6(-8) µm, Q 1.2-1.8, Qav 1.5, broadly pip-shaped, smooth, amyloid. Cheilocystidia 19-35 x 6.5-13.5 µm, lamellar edge sterile, clavate, obpyriform, subcylindrical or irregularly shaped, covered with fairly few, unevenly spaced, coarse, cylindrical, simple to branched, curved to flexuous excrescences 1-17 x 0.5-2 µm. Pleurocystidia absent. Lamellar trama dextrinoid. Hyphae of the pileipellis 1-4(-7) µm wide, smooth to sparsely diverticulate, excrescences 1-10(-18) x 0.5-1.5 µm. Hyphae of the cortical layer of the stipe 2-3 µm wide, smooth to sparsely diverticulate, excrescences 2-8 x 1-1.5 µm, terminal cells enlarged up to 5 µm, variously shaped, coarsely diverticulate. Clamp connections present in all tissues.

Microphotos of cheilocystidia.

Mycena inclinata is a highly variable species but is seldom hard to identify in the field. The fasciculate habit and occurrence on Quercus stumps are good indicators. So are also the crenulate margin of the pileus, the two-coloured stipe, the woolly base of the stipe, and the strong farinaceous or rancid smell.