Small to medium agaric, growing on the ground, litter or mulch, wood or bryophytes, with a rusty to ochre-brown, rarely dark brown spore print. Pileus pale or brown (typically honey-brown), rarely yellow, orange or red or pink, moist, rarely viscid, hygrophanous (or rarely not), usually translucent-striate. Lamellae adnexed, adnate, rarely sinuate or notched or subdecurrent. Stipe central, rarely excentric or lateral. Partial veil remnants a ring zone, a membranous annulus or absent. Spores pale, yellow-brown, rarely brown, warty; plage present; germ pore absent or rarely narrow and indistinct. Cheilocystidia present. Lamellar trama regular. Pileipellis a cutis. Clamp connections present.

Most species of Galerina are gracile (stipe diam. to 3 mm) and many also lack an annulus. These Mycena-like species can be recognised in the field by the typically yellow-brown (honey-coloured) pileus that is translucent-striate and very hygrophanous. There are a few rather small species of Cortinarius which are similarly mycenoid in stature, but the pileus is usually differently coloured (most often reddish brown). Moreover, they have an arachnoid partial veil, lack a plage on the spores and typically do not have cheilocystidia. Fruit-bodies of Tubaria are usually orange-brown or reddish brown, and spores are either smooth or, if ornamented (as rarely in extra-Australian species), lack a plage. Conocybe and Pholiotina can be very similar in stature and colour to Galerina, but their spores are smooth and the pileipellis is a hymeniderm. A few species of Galerina (G. unicolor and allies in section Naucoriopsis) are more robust (stipe to 6 mm diam.) and have a membranous annulus. These should be compared to Descolea, which has the annulus prominently striate above, warty spores without a plage and a pileipellis that is a hymeniderm or epithelium, and also to Pholiota, which has smooth spores and often a viscid pileus. Most species of Gymnopilus are distinguished by the more robust fruit-bodies with non-hygrophanous (and often velvety) pileus, and a plage is present only in some species (usually not as well-delimited as in Galerina). However, separation of the two genera can be difficult, especially for the small, laterally stipitate species. For most Gymnopilus, lamellar fragments release strong yellow pigment into KOH, but this is not the case for the small, excentrically stipitate Gymnopilus perplexus (previously placed in Galerina, as G. eucalyptorum).

About 30 species. Australian species are in seven sections.

Section Calyptrospora (spores ornamented, with plage and calyptra; pleurocystidia lacking): G. muscolignosa (= G. hypnorum in the sense of some Australian authors), G. subcerina and G. neocalyptrata.

Section Galerina (habit mycenoid, stipe rather thin, annulus usually lacking, spores ornamented, with plage, pleurocystidia present): G. aureopilea, G. lurida (annulus present), G. melleobrunnea, G. rugosa, G. subulata, G. vittiformis (including the 2-spored var. pachyspora).

Section Inocyboides (spores ornamented, with plage, metuloid cystidia present): Galerina nana [Keyed out separately].

Section Mycenopsis (spores almost always ornamented and then with plage present or rarely absent; spores rarely smooth and then without germ pore; pleurocystidia absent): G. capitata (including. var. pilosa), G. decipiens, G. hypnorum (not confirmed from Australia, and the many records under this name are likely to refer in fact to species such as G. muscolignosa), G. inaequalis, G. incrustata, G. leonina, G. nyula, G. oreophila, G. tibiformis and G. vesiculosa. Two species in this section with ornamented spores lacking a plage (G. bunyaensis and G. inflata) are keyed out separately. One species in this section with smooth spores (G. subpumila) is also keyed out separately.

Section Naucoriopsis (stipe fleshy, not thin, annulus present; spores ornamented, with plage, pleurocystidia present): G. marginata, G. patagonica, G. rudericola and G. unicolor.

Section Physocystis (spores oramented, with plage; pleurocystidia present, broad): G. tabacina and G. wilsonensis.

Section Porospora (annulus present or absent; spores smooth, with germ pore; pleurocystidia absent): G. alutacea (annulus), G. macrocystis (no annulus), G. mongaensis (no annulus), and G. truncospora (annulus). This section is keyed out separately.

Galerina bulliformis, which is unusual in having pink tints to the fruit-body, has not been placed in a section.

Three segregates of Galerina are keyed out separately: (1) Galerina with warty spores and no plage (G. bunyaensis and G. inflata), which both belong in section Mycenopsis, (2) Galerina with smooth spores (G. alutacea, G. macrocystis, G. mongaensis, G. subpumila and G. truncospora), which all belong in section Porospora except for G. subpumila (section Mycenopsis), and (3) Galerina nana (with metuloid cystidia), which belongs in section Inocyboides.

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

In native forests, and occasionally in parks and gardens. Some species occur in alpine areas in Sphagnum beds.

On the ground, litter, wood or among bryophytes.

Saprotrophic.

Bougher, N.L. & Syme, K. (1998), Fungi of Southern Australia. University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands. [Description, Illustration and Microcharacters of G. unicolor]

Fuhrer, B. (2005), A Field Guide to Australian Fungi. Bloomings Books, Hawthorn. [Description and Illustration of G. hypnorum, G. patagonica and G. unicolor]

Fuhrer, B. & Robinson, R. (1992), Rainforest Fungi of Tasmania and South-east Australia. CSIRO Press, East Melbourne. [Illustration of G. patagonica group (as Galerina sp.)]

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. [Key to South Australian species, and Description and Microcharacters of G. nyula and G. patagonica, and Illustration of the latter species]

Hood, I.A. (2003), An Introduction to Fungi on Wood in Queensland. University of New England, School of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resources Management, Armidale. [Description and B&W Illustration of G. patagonica]

Horak, E. (1988a), On some extraordinary species of Galerina Earle from New Zealand, Australia and Indonesia, with annotations to related South American taxa, Sydowia 40: 65–80. [Description, B&W Illustration and Microcharacters of G. tabacina and G. inaequalis]

McCann, I.R. (2003), Australian Fungi Illustrated. Macdown Productions, Vermont. [Illustration of G. hypnorum and an unidentified species]

Rees, B.J., Orlovich, D.A. & Marks, P.B.D. (1999), Treading the fine line between small-statured Gymnopilus and excentrically stipitate Galerina species in Australia, Mycol. Res. 103: 427–442. [Description, B&W Illustration and Microcharacters of G. bulliformis and G. incrustata]

Wood, A.E. (2001), Studies in the genus Galerina (Agaricales) in Australia, Austral. Syst. Bot. 14: 615–676 [Description, B&W Illustration and Microcharacters, along with Key, for 29 Australian species, including G. decipiens, G. lurida, G. marginata, G. muscolignosa, G. patagonica, G. subcerina, G. unicolor and G. vittiformis]