Small to large (mainly medium) agaric, growing on the ground or among litter, with a white or cream spore print (rarely pinkish in foreign species). Pileus white, pale, brown, pinkish or grey, moist, often strongly hygrophanous. Lamellae adnate or usually subdecurrent or decurrent. Stipe central. Partial veil remnants absent. Odour sometimes strong, such as of wattle blossom. Spores hyaline, non-amyloid, smooth; germ pore absent. Cheilocystidia absent. Lamellar trama regular. Pileipellis a cutis. Clamp connections present (in all accepted Australian species).

When the lamellae are decurrent, Clitocybe is distinguished from other white-spored agarics with no veil and smooth spores by the pale to drab colours, usually strongly hygrophanous pileus, and growth on the ground (or among litter) rather than on wood. In contrast, Cantharellus and Hygrocybe are often brightly coloured, and they can have a viscid or glutinous pileus and stipe. Arrhenia, Lichenomphalia, Loreleia and Rickenella are usually small and can lack clamp connections, and the latter three are often bright yellow or orange and often grow on an algal mat or on bryophytes. Some species of Lepista and Clitopilus morphogroup Rhodocybe are very similar to Clitocybe in overall shape, but most have a pinkish brown spore print, with spores of the former genus being warty and those of the latter being warty and angular in polar view. Clitopilus morphogroup Rhodocybe also differs in the usual absence of clamp connections. Among white-spored genera with adnate lamellae, Clitocybe is distinguished from Gymnopus by the absence of cheilocystidia and the pileipellis which is a cutis with unbranched hyphae, and from Rhodocollybia by having spores that are not dextrinoid. Clitocybe semiocculta grows on wood and has an excentric stipe.

About ten species: C. australiana, C. boolaronga, C. brunneoceracea, C. campestris, C. clitocyboides (this is very close to C. hydrogramma, which is currently called C. phaeophthalma; it belongs in Singerocybe), C. kenkulunea, C. paraditopa and C. pascua, along with Clitocybe semiocculta (keyed out separately because it grows on wood or bark, and the stipe is excentric).

Three species lacking clamp connections and reported by Grgurinovic (1997) are excluded from Clitocybe: C. peraggregata, C. tortipes and C. subfrumentacea (the last possibly belongs in Clitopilus morphogroup Rhodocybe, note the pinkish lamellae). Clitocybe straminea is also excluded; it occurs at the base of stumps and has a fibrillose pileus surface (it is possibly a Trogia).

W.A., S.A., Qld, N.S.W., Vic. and Tas. (and probably also N.T.).

In native forests.

On the ground or among litter (not growing directly from wood).

Saprotrophic.

Bougher, N.L. (2009a), Fungi of the Perth region and beyond: a self-managed field book, Western Australian Naturalists' Club (Inc.), Perth. [Description and Illustration of C. kenkulnea]

Fuhrer, B. (2005), A Field Guide to Australian Fungi. Bloomings Books, Hawthorn. [Description and Illustration of C. clitocyboides]

Grgurinovic, C.A. (1997a), Larger Fungi of South Australia. The Botanic Gardens of Adelaide and State Herbarium and The Flora and Fauna of South Australia Handbooks Committee, Adelaide. [Description and Microcharacters of C. australiana, C. boolaronga, C. brunneoceracea, C. campestris, C. kenkulunea, C. paraditopa and C. pascua, along with Illustration of C. australiana, C. brunneoceracea, C. campestris and C. paraditopa and with Key to South Australian species]

McCann, I.R. (2003), Australian Fungi Illustrated. Macdown Productions, Vermont. [Illustration of C. clitocyboides]

Young, A.M. (2005b), A Field Guide to the Fungi of Australia. University of New South Wales Press, Sydney. [Description and B&W Illustration of C. paraditopa]