Habitat: C. atrialba is a western species that occurs singly on the (sometimes buried) wood of alder and perhaps other hardwoods.
Substrate: Wood or woody debris
Spores: whitish amyloid spores
Conservation Status: Not of concern
Clitocybula is a genus of small to larger clitocybe- or collybia-like mushrooms that occur on wood or woody debris and have whitish amyloid spores. Some of the species grow in clusters, such as C. abundans (Peck) Singer, and have adnate to slightly decurrent gills. C. atrialba is a western species that occurs singly on the (sometimes buried) wood of alder and perhaps other hardwoods. It can be very common in some years, but totally absent in others. It is an elegant slender-stiped mushroom with a funnel-shaped, dark smoky to blackish brown, matted fibrillose to furfuraceous cap, distant, decurrent, pale grayish gills that end at a collar-like line on the stipe apex, and a scaly to furfuraceous stipe that is colored like the cap, enlarged below, and often bears white strands at its base.
It can be very common in some years, but totally absent in others.
Sources: Trudell, Steve and Joe Ammirati. Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest. Portland, Timber Press, Inc. 2009.
PNW Herbaria: Specimen records of Clitocybula atrialba in the Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria database
CalPhotos: Clitocybula atrialba photos