Small to medium agaric, growing on litter or mulch, wood, or rarely the ground, usually in dense clusters, with a purple-brown spore print. Pileus yellow, orange, brown, red or greenish, dry or moist, rarely viscid. Lamellae adnexed, adnate, sinuate or notched or subdecurrent. Stipe central. Partial veil remnants a ring zone, a membranous annulus or absent. Spores yellow-brown, purplish or greyish, smooth; germ pore narrow or broad. Cheilocystidia present. Chrysocystidia present. Lamellar trama regular. Pileipellis a cutis; hypoderm subcellular. Clamp connections present or sometimes absent in some tissues.

Among agarics with purple-brown spore print Hypholoma is distinguished from Stropharia by the pileus surface at most slightly viscid, and never glutinous, and the subcellular hypoderm to the pileipellis. It differs from Psilocybe (at least as far as the Australian species) by the presence of chrysocystidia. Pholiota can grow in clusters on wood, but it has an ochre to dark brown spore print. Fruit-bodies of Leratiomyces ceres are similar in appearance to Hypholoma australe, but they grow on mulch and litter rather than larger buried wood, and have a distinctly viscid pileus when fresh. In addition, the spores are larger in the former species. Species of Hypholoma section Psilocyboides often grow in moss and are not caespitose.

Four species: Hypholoma australe (= H. sublateritium sensu auct. Aust.), H. brunneum, H. fasciculare (with a variant with orange lamellae, currently known as Psilocybe fascicularis var. armeniaca) and H. radicosum.

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

In native forests or in parks, gardens and plantations.

On wood or litter, rarely on the ground (growing from buried 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 H. australe]

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

Breitenbach, J. & Kränzlin, F. (eds) (1995), Fungi of Switzerland. Volume 4. Agarics 2nd part. Edition Mykologia, Lucerne. [Illustration, Description and Microcharacters of ten Swiss species, including H. fasciculare and H. radicosum]

Chang, Y.S., Gates, G.M. & Ratkowsky, D.A. (2006), Some new species of the Strophariaceae (Agaricales) in Tasmania, Australas. Mycol. 24: 53–68. [B&W Illustration, Description and Microcharacters of Psilocybe fascicularis var. armeniaca [which has yet to be transferred to Hypholoma]]

Fuhrer, B. (2005), A Field Guide to Australian Fungi. Bloomings Books, Hawthorn. [Description and Illustration of H. australe (as H. sublateritium) H. brunneum, H. fasciculare and an unnamed species]

Fuhrer, B. & Robinson, R. (1992), Rainforest Fungi of Tasmania and South-east Australia. CSIRO Press, East Melbourne. [Illustration of H. australe (as H. sublateritium) H. brunneum and H. fasciculare]

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 H. australe (as H. sublateritium) and H. fasciculare, and B&W Illustration of the latter species]

McCann, I.R. (2003), Australian Fungi Illustrated. Macdown Productions, Vermont. [Illustration of H. australe, H. brunneum and H. fasciculare]

Miller, O.K., Jr & Pearce, M.H. (1996), A new species of Hypholoma (Agaricales) from Western Australia, Austral. Syst. Bot. 9: 819–826. [Description, B&W Illustration and Microcharacters of H. australe]

Reid, D.A. (1956), New or interesting records of Australasian Basidiomycetes, Kew Bull. 1955: 631–648. [Description, and Microcharacters of H. brunneum]

Young, T. (1982), Common Australian Fungi, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney. [Description, B&W Illustration and Microcharacters of H. radicosum]

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 H. fasciculare and H. australe (as H. sublateritium)]