Small to medium agaric, growing on the ground, with a clay-brown to dark brown spore print. Pileus pale, brown or purple, not viscid, rarely glabrous, usually tomentose, fibrillose or squamulose. Lamellae adnexed, adnate, sinuate or subdecurrent. Stipe central. Partial veil remnants absent or rarely a ring zone. Spores pale or yellow-brown, smooth; germ pore absent or rarely narrow. Cheilocystidia present, often thick-walled (metuloid). Lamellar trama regular. Pileipellis a cutis or a trichoderm. Clamp connections present.

The pileus surface is dry and often radially split, which is a useful field character to assist with differentiation from small species of Cortinarius (which usually have an ochre spore print). A few species of Inocybe (particularly those assigned to Auritella) have a tomentose pileus surface. Species of Inocybe with metuloids (thick-walled cystidia with a crystal capping) are distinctive. The only other brown-spored, centrally stipitate agaric with well-developed metuloids is Galerina nana, which has verrucose spores with a plage. Among brown-spored genera with smooth spores, the species of Inocybe that lack metuloids should be compared to Agrocybe (with hymeniform pileipellis and spores that usually have a germ pore) and Pholiota (typically with viscid pileus and generally with the spores having a germ pore and chrysocystidia present). Most Cortinarius are distinct because they have verrucose spores but Cortinarius fibrillosus has very finely ornamented spores that can appear smooth, and is also unusual in having a radially fibrillose pileus. However, it lacks metuloids, and the pileipellis hyphae are thick-walled.

About a dozen species known, but more expected: Inocybe australiensis, I. crassipes, I. eutheles (under exotic pines), I. fibrillosibrunnea, I. fulvo-olivacea, I. granulosipes, I. murrayana, I. patouillardii (under exotic pines), I. rufuloides (under exotic pines), I. sinuospora (under Allocasuarina and I. violaceocaulis. Included under Inocybe (rounded spores) are also four species recently placed in Auritella (a genus that differs by the presence of necropigment in the basidia and the non-metuloid cheilocystidia): A. arenicolens (= Inocybe), A. chamaecephala, A. dolichocystis and A. serpentinocystis.

For Inocybe austrofibrillosa, I. cystidiocatenata and I. striatula, see Cortinarius fibrillosus, and for I. marangania, see Pholiota.

There is at least one sequestrate (truffle-like) species, Auritella geoaustralis.

Species of Inocybe with nodulose spores are keyed out separately.

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

In native forests, and under exotic trees in gardens and plantations.

On the ground.

Ectomycorrhizal.

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 I. murrayana and I. violaceocaulis]

Bougher, N.L. & Matheny, P.B. (2011), Two species of Inocybe (fungi) introduced into Western Australia, Nuytsia 21: 139–148. [Description, Illustration and Microcharacters of I. rufuloides]

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

Bougher, N.L., Matheny, P.B. & Gates, G.M. (2012), Five new species and records of Inocybe (Agaricales) from temperate and tropical Australia, Nuytsia 22: 57–74. [Illustration, Description and Microcharacters of I. sinuospora]

Fuhrer, B. (2005), A Field Guide to Australian Fungi. Bloomings Books, Hawthorn. [Description and Illustration of I. australiensis, I. eutheles and an unnamed species, the latter more likely a Cortinarius due to rusty brown spore print]

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 I. arenacolens, I. australiensis, I. crassipes, I. marangania and I. murrayana, and Key to South Australian species ]

Horak, E. (1980b), Inocybe (Agaricales) in Indomalaya and Australasia, Persoonia 11: 1–37. [Description and Microcharacters of arenacolens and I. australiensis and Key to species]

Matheny, P.B. & Bougher, N.L. (2005), A new violet species of Inocybe (Agaricales) from urban and rural landscapes in Western Australia, Australas. Mycol. 24: 7–12. [Description, Illustration and Microcharacters of I. violaceocaulis]

Matheny, P.B. & Bougher, N.L. (2006), The new genus Auritella from Africa and Australia (Inocybaceae, Agaricales): molecular systematics, taxonomy and historical biogeography, Mycol. Progr. 5: 2–17. [Description and Microcharacters of A. arenacolens, A. chamaecephala, A. dolichocystis and A. serpentinocystis, and B&W Illustration of A. arenacolens and A. chamaecephala]

Matheny, P.B. & Bougher, N.L. (2010), Type studies of Australian species of Inocybe (Agaricales), Muelleria 28: 87–104. [Description and Microcharacters for I. australiensis, I. fulvo-olivacea, I. granulosipes and I. murrayana, with a Key to accepted Australian members of Inocybe and Auritella and a Description of A. arenicolens]

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

Miller, O.K., Jr & Hilton, R.N. (1987), New and interesting agarics from Western Australia, Sydowia 39: 126–137. [B&W Illustration, Description and Microcharacters of I. fibrillosibrunnea]

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 I. patouillardii]