Found in Europe, Northern Eurasia, and North America, it is known from temperate, boreal, and alpine or arctic habitats.

[2] A later combination based on this name, Collybia amanitae, was published by Hanns Kreisel in 1987.

"[8] The first valid name was published in 1803 by Heinrich Christian Friedrich Schumacher, who called the species Agaricus cirrhatus.

[13] Molecular phylogenetics have shown that C. cirrhata forms a monophyletic clade with the remaining two species of Collybia.

The cap surface ranges from dry to moist, smooth to covered with fine whitish hairs, and is mostly even with translucent radial grooves at the margin.

It is subhygrophanous (changing color somewhat depending on hydration), becoming a grayish-orange when watery or old, and usually is white with a very faint pinkish flush when fresh.

The stem surface is dry, whitish to grayish-orange, sometimes with tiny hairs on the upper portion that become coarser near the base.

They are smooth, inamyloid, and acyanophilous (unreactive to staining with Melzer's reagent and methyl blue, respectively).

The basidia (spore-bearing cells of the hymenium) are roughly club-shaped, four-spored, and measure 17.5–21 by 4.8–5.6 μm.

They give rise to a covering of tangled and branched caulocystidia (cystidia on the stem) that have multiple septa.

The caulocystidia are 2.8–4.8 μm in diameter, smooth, thin walled, and shaped like contorted cylinders.

Like all species remaining in the genus Collybia, C. cirrhata is saprobic, and is typically found growing on the decaying or blackened remains of other mushrooms;[19] occasionally the fruit bodies may be found growing on moss or soil without any apparent connection to decaying mushrooms,[21] although these observations may represent instances where the remnant host tissue—possibly from a previous season—has decayed to such an extent that it remains as buried fragments in the substrate.

The fungus is widespread in Europe,[23] including Bulgaria,[24] Denmark,[25] Germany,[26] Greece,[21] Latvia,[27] Scandinavia,[28] Slovakia,[29] Switzerland,[22] Turkey,[30] and the United Kingdom.