Found in North America and Europe, it produces small whitish to gray fruit bodies with bell-shaped caps that are up to 15 mm (0.6 in) in diameter.

The distinguishing characteristic of the mushroom is the fragile stipe, which is seated on a flat disk marked with distinct grooves, and fringed with a row of bristles.

[10] The cap of M. stylobates is 3–15 mm (0.1–0.6 in) in diameter, and depending on its age may range in shape from obtusely conic to convex to bell-shaped to flattened.

The cheilocystidium (cystidia on the gill edge) are abundant and variable in structure, usually club-shaped with between two and five thick obtuse projections that arise from near the apex, sometimes more or less covered with numerous protuberances over the enlarged portion and the neck more or less contorted.

The gill flesh is made of greatly enlarged cells, and stains pale vinaceous (red wine color) in iodine.

Sometimes some of the hyphae become aggregated into peglike structures that project from the surface, and cause the appearance of scattered coarse spines on the cap when viewed under a 10X magnifying lens.

The tissue beneath the pellicle is made entirely of greatly enlarged cells, which appear pale vinaceous in iodine stain.

M. bulbosa, a species that grows on woody stalks in wet habitats, has nonamyloid spores, and gill edges that contain a tough-elastic, gelatinous thread.

According to Volker Walther and colleagues, the development can be divided into two phases: in the first, the primordium is established that contains all the structures of the mature fruit body; in the second stage, the primordial stipe elongates rapidly, and the newly exposed hymenium immediately begins spore production.

Gill development initiates with a number of small alveolae on the lower side of the cap, which are covered with a hymenophoral palisade (a group of tightly packed, roughly parallel cells).

[17] The fruit bodies of Mycena stylobates grow scattered or in groups on oak leaves or coniferous needles, in the spring and summer or early autumn.

Mycena specialist Alexander H. Smith has collected it in Tennessee, Michigan, Idaho, and Washington in the United States, and in Nova Scotia and Ontario in Canada.

[11] It is also found in Europe, including Britain,[12] Denmark,[18] Germany,[19] Norway,[15] Poland,[20] Romania,[21] Scotland,[22] Serbia,[23] Sweden.