Small to medium agaric, growing on the ground, in litter or mulch or on wood, with a rusty to ochre-brown spore print. Pileus pale or brown, not viscid. Lamellae adnexed, adnate, rarely sinuate or notched. Stipe central. Partial veil remnants a membranous annulus or absent. Spores pale or yellow-brown, smooth; plage absent; germ pore absent, narrow or broad. Cheilocystidia present. Lamellar trama regular. Pileipellis a cutis. Clamp connections present.

Smooth-spored species of Galerina are macroscopically indistinguishable from other species of the genus. There is no plage on the spores. The four species with a germ pore could be confused with Conocybe or Pholiotina, but in those genera the pileipellis is a hymeniderm. Psilocybe differs in the dark brown or purple-brown spore print and the usually viscid pileus. Among those agarics with a rust to ochre spore print, smooth spores and cheilocystidia, Pholiota is most similar, but it often has a viscid pileus, a squamulose stipe and chrysocystidia. The non-nodulose species of Inocybe differ in the coarsely fibrillose pileus, the cystidia which are usually metuloid, the spores almost always lacking a germ pore and the spore print which is typically a duller brown. The one species of Galerina with smooth spores and no germ pore (G. subpumila) lacks partial veil remnants, and this assists in distinguishing it from Tubaria, where a partial veil is present initially, and usually forms remnants on the stipe.

Five species: one without a germ pore, Galerina subpumila, from section Mycenopsis and four with a germ pore, all from section Porospora, G. alutacea (broad germ pore, annulus), G. macrocystis (no annulus), G. mongaensis (no annulus), and G. truncospora (broad germ pore, annulus). These are keyed out separately because it is unusual for species of Galerina to have smooth spores.

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

In native forests.

On the ground, litter or wood.

Saprotrophic.

Wood, A.E. (2001), Studies in the genus Galerina (Agaricales) in Australia, Austral. Syst. Bot. 14: 615–676 [Description, B&W Illustration and Microcharacters of Galerina alutacea, G. macrocystis, G. mongaensis, G. subpumila and G. truncospora]