The fungus produces small white fruit bodies (mushrooms) with caps up to 7.5 mm (0.3 in) in diameter that appear to be dusted with sugar-like granules.

There are several small white Mycena species that are similar in appearance to M. adscendens, some of which can be reliably distinguished only by examining microscopic characteristics.

The species, originally named Agaricus adscendens by Wilhelm Gottfried Lasch in 1829, was first collected in the Province of Brandenburg, in what was then the Kingdom of Prussia (now Germany).

[3] According to Maas Geesteranus,[3][4] Miles Berkeley's 1836 Agaricus tenerrimus[5] is the same species as Mycena adscendens, as well as all later synonyms based on this basionym: Mycena tenerrima, published by Lucien Quélet in 1872;[6] Prunulus tenerrimus by William Alphonso Murrill in 1916;[7] and Karel Cejp's 1930 Pseudomycena tenerrima.

[8] Although Index Fungorum agrees with Maas Geesteranus's synonymy,[1] other authorities treat the species as independent.

[13] The specific epithet adscendens, derived from the Latin, means "ascending" or "curving up from a prostrate base".

[17] They are up to 0.5 mm broad, distantly-spaced (usually numbering between 7 and 12), and sometimes adhering to each other to form a slight collar (a pseudocollarium) around the stem.

[20] The variety carpophila is characterized by its tiny white cap up to 1 mm in diameter, and narrowly conical caulocystidia (cystidia found on the stem).

The former is distinguished from M. adscendens by a stem base that is not swollen or disc-like, the latter by its larger and sturdier fruit body and lack of granules on the cap.

[20] A poorly known Japanese species, M. cryptomeriicola, is similar to M. adscendens, but has non-amyloid spores and lacks clamps.

[11] The Finnish species M. occulta grows on the decaying needles of Norway spruce and Scots pine.