Small to medium agaric, growing in clusters on wood, with a white spore print. Pileus orange, brown or green, viscid or glutinous. Lamellae orange, sinuate or notched, subdecurrent, rarely adnexed. Stipe central, viscid to glutinous. Partial veil remnants absent. Spores hyaline, amyloid, smooth; germ pore absent. Cheilocystidia present. Lamellar trama regular. Pileipellis a cutis; composed of nodulose hyphae. Clamp connections present.

The combination of orange lamellae and a viscid to glutinous pileus and stipe occurs in some species of Hygrocybe, but the latter do not grow on wood and they do not have amyloid spores.

One species: Mycena leaiana. This is the sole Australian representative of Mycena section Caespitosae. It is keyed out separately because the orange lamellae and viscid fruit-body are distinctive.

Mycena leaiana (Berk.) Sacc., Syll. Fung. 9: 38 (1891).

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

In native forests (often in Nothofagus cool-temperate rainforest, but also with Eucalyptus or Araucaria)

On wood, occasionally apparently on the ground (attached to buried wood).

Saprotrophic.

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

Fuhrer, B. & Robinson, R. (1992), Rainforest Fungi of Tasmania and South-east Australia. CSIRO Press, East Melbourne. [Illustration of M. leaiana]

Grey, P. & Grey, E. (2005), Fungi Down Under. Fungimap, South Yarra. [Description, Illustration and Map for M. leaiana]

Grgurinovic, C.A. (2003), The genus Mycena in south-eastern Australia. Fungal Diversity Press, Hong Kong and Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra. [Description, Illustration, B&W Illustration and Microcharacters for M. leaiana]

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