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. 55--60, 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 6.7--9.9 x 4.4--6.3 x 4.9-5.1 µm, QB = 1.35--1.85, av. QB = 1.45--1.65, QW = 1.55-1.75, av. QW = 1.55-1.7, av. L = 7.4--8.6 µm, av. B = 4.6--5.9 µm, av. W = 5.0-5.5 µm, ovoid or ellipsoid, in side view a few phaseoliform, with rounded base and apex, medium red-brown; germ pore eccentric, c. 1.3 µm wide. Basidia 14--34 x 7--9 µm, 4-spored, surrounded by 3--6 pseudoparaphyses. Pleurocystidia 50--125 x 30--65 µm, subglobose, ellipsoid, broadly utriform or subcylindric. Cheilocystidia 30--70(--100) x 12--28(--34) x 5--14(--18) µm and lageniform, mixed with (sub)globose, ellipsoid or ovoid ones similar to pleurocystidia. Caulocystidia 30--130 x 12--38 x 5--14 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

  Solitary or subfasciculate on dead branches of deciduous trees, rarely on truncs. Very common, wide-spread in Europe, distribution unknown in other regions.

Remarks

  Coprinus xanthothrix can be recognized by the ellipsoid spores with a breadth between 4.5 and 5.5 µm being not phaseoliform in side view or only a little number. The species usually grows on branches of deciduous trees and the basidiocarps are smaller in general than in C. domesticus and C. radians.