Solitary or in small groups on fallen twigs, leaves, conifer needles, dead culms of grasses etc.. Summer to autumn. Widespread and fairly common. In Norway found all over the country.

Pileus 4-10 mm across, viscid, covered with a separable, gelatinous pellicle, conical to planoconvex, flattening with age, translucent-striate, sulcate, glabrous or occasionally somewhat hispid, pale grey-brown to greyish white. Lamellae 14-18 reaching the stipe, ascending, narrowly adnate to free, often forming a pseudocollarium, white. Stipe 15-35 x 0.3-1 mm, hollow, fragile, straight, pruinose above, glabrous farther below, watery grey to white, springing from a basal disc which is up to 2 mm across, sulcate, pubescent, white, with a ciliate margin. Odour none.

Basidia 16-25 x 6-8 μm, clavate, 4-spored, with sterigmata up to 5 μm long. Spores 7.5-10.5 x 3.5-5 μm, Q 1.6-2.7, Qav 1.9-2.1, elongated pip-shaped to almost cylindrical, smooth, amyloid. Cheilocystidia 18-60 x 5-13 μm, forming a sterile band, irregularly clavate, fusiform or almost cylindrical, with few to numerous variously shaped, and often coarse excrescences with rounded apices. Pleurocystidia absent. Lamellar trama dextrinoid. Hyphae of the pileipellis 2.5-6 μm wide, embedded in a gelatinous matter, variously branched, smooth or densely covered with warts or short cylindrical excrescences 1-7 x 0.5-1 μm, terminal cells clavate, up to 11μm wide. Hyphae of the cortical layer of the stipe 2-4 μm wide, smooth withscattered caulocystidia 45-80 x 7-8 μm, fusiform, smooth. Clamp connections present in all tissues.

There are several species springing from a basal disc. Mycena mucor is quite similar to M. stylobates but is usually smaller and grows on fallen, decaying leaves of Quercus. The cheilocystidia are different, with very slender excrescences, and the margin of the basal disc is not ciliate. M. bulbosa grows on herbaceous stalks in wet habitats, the spores are non-amyloid, and the lamellar edge contains a tough-elastic, gelatinous thread. M. aciculata has a pubescent to setose pileus (showing as long, thick-walled cells in the microscope), and an entirely puberulous stipe springing from a setose basal disc; the cheilocystidia are different, and the spores are non-amyloid. The closest species is probably M. tenuispinosa. It differs in having a cap densely covered with more prominent spines, cheilocystidia with narrower excrescences, and very conspicuous clusters of pileal spinules springing from the hyphae of the pileipellis.

Microphotos of the hyphae of the pileipellis 1

Microphotos of the hyphae of the pileipellis 2

Microphotos of the cheilocystidia 1

Microphotos of cheilocystidia 2

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