Dendrocollybia racemosa  

The branched shanklet is a small, grayish-white to brown mycoparasite distinctive as the main stipe has multiple side-branches each bearing a very small, round cap.

Teleomorph: Pileus 2-4(-10) mm, convex then applanate (flattened) with small papilla, with involute (curled) then deflexed (turned abruptly downwards) or straight margin, hardly hygrophanous (changing colour), pale grayish white or grayish brown, slightly rugulose (wrinkled). Lamellae rather crowded, adnate (joined), narrow, linear, gray to gray-brown or chocolate-brown, darker than pileus, with entire, concolorous (the same colour) edge. Stipe 20-60 x 0.1-0.5 mm, cylindrical, sordid brown, orange- or reddish brown to very dark brown, finely grooved lengthwise, with numerous up to 5 mm long side-branches, bearing a very small, globose sterile pileus (a round cap). Context thin, brownish gray. Smell and taste indistinct. Sclerotium globose, up to 5 mm diam., black, dull. Spores 4.5-6.5 x 2.0-2.5 μm, oblong to subcylindrical or somewhat phaseoliform (bean-shaped). Basidia 18-22 x 4.0-4.5 μm, 4-spored, narrowly clavate (club-shaped). Lamella edge fertile. Cystidia absent. Pileipellis a cutis of radially arranged, cylindrical, 2-8 μm wide, weakly encrusted hyphae. Side-branches of stipe made up of parallel hyphae. Conidia abundant on side-branches, curved-fusiform or more or less triangular, 7.0-13 x 3.0-5.5 μm. Stipitipellis a cutis of cylindrical, 2-7 μm wide, yellow hyphae. Caulocystidia abundant, 30-120 x 2-8 μm, cylindrical to flexuous, towards base of stipe often septate. Clamp-connections abundant in all tissues. Sclerotial wall made up of 5.0-10 μm wide, branched hyphae with thin or thickened, brown-coloured walls; sclerotial context irregular, made up of 3.5-6.0 μm wide hyphae, with thin or thickened, colourless walls.

Adapted from Noordeloos (1995). "Collybia" In Flora Agaricina Neerlandica (C. Bas, Th. W. Kuyper, M. E. Noordeloos & E. C. Vellinga, eds): 106–123.

Anamorph: Tilachlidiopsis racemosa