Synonyme: Pholiota mutabilis; Dryophila mutabilis; Galerina mutabilis.
English: Sheathed woodtuft.
German: Gemeine Stockschwämmchen.
Region: Australia, Asia, Caucuses, Siberia, Japan, North America, Europe.
Use: edible, but not recommended; fried or used for flavouring in sauces and soups, the stems being considered too tough; easily confused with the deadly poisonous Galerina marginata.
Habitat: always grows on wood, generally on stumps of broad-leaved trees, especially beech, birch and alder, rarely on conifers.
MycologyThe saprotrophic fungus grows in clumps on tree stumps or other dead wood. It has gills on hymenium. The cap is convex, clustered, shiny, ± 7 cm in diameter. It is very hygrophanous, in a damp state deep orange-brown, shiny and greasy, in a dry state cinnamon-coloured. The hymenium is adnexed. The stipe has a ring; The spore print is brown. The gills are initially light and later cinnamon brown, somewhat decurrent. The stipe is 8 long, 1 cm in diameter with a ring which separates the bare, smooth light cinnamon upper part from the darker brown shaggily scaly lower part.