Solitary or in small groups on trunks of deciduous trees, on bark, woody debris and fallen twigs. Occuring from spring to late autumn. Very common and widely distributed in Norway.

Pileus 2-10 mm across, hemispherical, parabolical or convex to plano-convex, sometimes with a shallow central depression, at other times also with a small umbo or papilla, flattening with age, shallowly sulcate, not infrequently somewhat rugulose-gibbous, more or less markedly translucent-striate, pruinose to minutely puberulous when young, glabrescent, becoming somewhat lubricous (dirt sticking to the surface), pale grey-brown or pale yellowish sepia brown, dark at the centre, paler to dingy whitish farther outwards, drying whitish. Flesh up to 1 mm thick, pale watery yellowish brownish to dingy whitish. Lamellae 10-17 reaching the stipe, tender, horizontal to arcuate, up to 2.5 mm broad, broadly adnate and decurrent, smooth, becoming ribbed and intervenose, white to whitish, or with some yellowish shade, the edge straight to concave, concolorous. Stipe 7-30 x 0.5-2 mm, hollow, fragile, equal or tapering downwards, straight to somewhat curved, terete, densely but minutely puberulous all over, watery whitish or yellowish or suffused with a brownish shade, often more pronouncedly sepia coloured below, the base more or less densely covered with coarse, whitish fibrils which fasten it to the substratum. In fresh condition the apical part of the stipe turns a beautiful wine red to brownish violet when touched with a small drop of Melzer's reagent. Odour none or slightly farinaceous. Taste indistinctive.

Basidia 22-28(-35) x 5.5-7 µm, clavate, 2-spored, with sterigmata 5.5-7 µm long (4-spored basidia are known to occur). Spores 7.5-10(-11) x 4.5-5.8 µm, Qav 1.8-1.9, pip-shaped to amygdaliform, smooth, non-amyloid. Cheilocystidia 22-45 x 3.5-8 µm, forming a sterile band, subcylindrical, subfusiform, clavate, subutriform or somewhat irregularly shaped, usually simple but also fucate or lobed or covered with a few excrescences, curved to somewhat flexuous. Pleurocystidia absent. Lamellar trama weakly to not dextrinoid. Hyphae of the pileipellis 1.5-3.5 µm wide, covered with simple to branched, more or less cylindrical, curved to flexuous excrescences 1.5-14.5 x 1-3 µm which may form dense masses and tend to become somewhat gelatinized, with intracellular, brown pigmentation, seen in lower layers of pileipellis.

More micro-drawings.

Phloeomana speirea was formerly recognized as a member of Mycena sect. Hiemales.

I have never seen 4-spored basidia in this species.

The form with a yellow stipe is often referred to as f. camptophylla (Berk.) Kühner (e. g. Robich 2006: 379).

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