Marasmius crinisequi (Horse-hair fungus)

The fruit body is a mushroom with a cap atop a central stem. The cap is often about 3 millimetres in diameter, more or less hemispherical and with several radial indentations. It is dry and creamy to brownish. The dark brown to black stem may be over 10 centimetres long (but at times only a centimetre or two) and is only about half a millimetre wide.

The stiffish, thin stem is the basis for both the species epithet (from the Latin crinis=hair + equus=horse) the vernacular name Horse-hair mushroom for this species.      

There is neither a partial nor a universal veil.

Spores: white.

It grows from leaf and twig litter in forests and you are likely to find a tangled mat of black ‘horse hair’ over or through the underlying litter..

Look-alikes

It has been suggested that more than black-stemmed, brownish-capped ‘horse hair’ Marasmius species occurs in Australian forests but for the moment only the name Marasmius crinisequi will be used.

There are other species of thin-stemmed, litter-inhabiting mushrooms, but with different colours to stem or cap.