The fruit body is a mushroom with a cap atop a stem. The caps are 1-10 centimetres in diameter, generally some shade of brown and smooth, hairy or scaly. At maturity the gills are dark. The fruit bodies may be fragile, with the caps or (especially) the stems breaking easily.
A partial veil is present in some species, but may be flimsy. There is no universal veil.
Spore print: mostly dark brown or purplish-brown (rarely reddish-brown).
The fruit bodies grow on soil, wood or dung.
Look-alikes
Species of Psathyrella are fairly dowdy, with little in the way of striking visual features and several genera are visually similar. Furthermore various species have moved between Psathyrella and similar genera and the genus has not been well-studied in Australia. Hence, a Nature Map identification as just Psathyrella must thought of as meaning “Psathyrella is highly plausible, but there is still room for doubt”. Indeed, I was tempted to create the category 'perhaps Psathyrella'.
Psathyrella sp. is listed in the following regions:
Canberra & Southern Tablelands | Gippsland
Maps
Croajingolong National Park The PinnaclePlaces
Dunlop, ACT Genoa, VIC