Pileus up to 40 x 35 mm when still closed, subglobose, ovoid or ellipsoid, expanding to conical or convex and then up to 70 mm wide, centre pale ochre or dirty rust, paler towards margin, covered with a layer of felty, whitish veil, breaking up into small, woolly flocks, those becoming cream, ochre or somewhat darker brown at centre of pileus. Lamellae, L = c. 60-75, l = 3-5, free, first white then grey-brown to black, 3-8(-10) mm broad. Stipe 40-100 x 4-10 mm, white, base clavate, sometimes with a volva-like margin and often attached to a rust coloured ozonium.
  Spores 6.0-8.9 x 3.7-4.8 µm, Q = 1.45-1.90, av. Q = 1.65-1.85, av. L = 7.4-8.3 µm, av. B = 4.2-4.5 µm, ovoid or ellipsoid, in side view a few phaseoliform, with rounded base and apex, medium red-brown; germ pore eccentric, c. 1.2 µm wide. Basidia 18-34 x 8-9 µm, 4-spored, surrounded by 3-6 pseudoparaphyses. Pleurocystidia 50-120 x 30-65 µm, subglobose, ellipsoid, broadly utriform or subcylindric. Cheilocystidia 30-100 x 30-60 µm, (sub)globose, ellipsoid, ovoid, broadly utriform. Caulocystidia 50-120 x 18-30 x 5-7 µm, lageniform. Veil 20-80 x 5-30 µm, made up of chains of cylindrical to ellipsoid, fusoid or (sub)globose cells, if (sub)globose than towards end of the chain and 25-45 µm in diam., thin-walled to somewhat thick-walled and brownish, the thick-walled in particular from and around centre of pileus. Pileipellis a epithelioid hymeniderm. Clamp-connections absent, only pseudoclamps found.

Habitat & distribution

  Fasciculate or gregarious around truncs or on logs and branches of deciduous trees, rarely solitary. Very common, wide-spread in Europe, America, Azia and North-Africa.

Remarks

  Coprinus domesticus can be recognized by the subcylindrical spores with a breadth less than 4.5 µm and at side view phaseoliform for a great part, and the rather large basidiocarps growing usual on or around truncs and dead trees. Coprinus ellisii should be distinguish from C. domesticus by the volva-like margin at the base of the stipe, but this feature appear to all other members of the group.