Basidiomata usually slender, delicate, mycenoid, never deliquescent, small to medium (5-25 mm) only occasionally in non-New Zealand taxa larger, uniformly brown, less frequently white although some extralimital taxa may be coloured, but never with vacuolar sap. Pileus campanulate, cylindrical or ellipsoid to convex, rarely expanding, hygrophanous or expellant, greasy or moist, rarely viscid, often glistening when dry or becoming wrinkled, smooth or pubescent, usually striate when moist, slightly sulcate or not, more rarely plicate-sulcate, some species with appendiculate veil. Stipe central, striate or silky, often villose, pubescent or pruinose in most species, white or some shade of brown especially with age; some species annulate or with silky fibrillose floccules. Gills adnate, only occasionally free or with tooth, at first strongly ascending, linear, lanceolate. Flesh usually thin, concolorous or paler than pileus and stipe, although often darkening in stipe from base up with age. Basidiospores smooth, thick-walled with distinct or indistinct germ-pore. Basidia 4-spored. Hymenophoral trama regular becoming less regular with age, of inflated cells surrounding a thin almost obliterated, central, filamentous strand. Pileipellis a distinct palisadoderm with or without distinct dermatocystidia and/or hair-like cells (see pg 45). Stipitipellis of parallel, cylindric hyphae with brown cell walls; caulocystidia often numerous resembling those on gill-margin, or slightly modified and less distinctly differentiated, accompanied or not with hair-like cells.

Development where known in European species paravelangiocarpic or modifications of this. On the ground in woods, pastures, gardens etc. and on dung; only occasionally directly attached to plant-remains or vegetable refuse; saprophytes.

The only subgenus not as yet found in New Zealand is Galerella but it should be looked for in grassland, on lawns, and close to human habitation. Subgenus Conocybe sect. Singerella has been recorded from New Guinea and Malaysia; and sect. Nodulososporae from Japan and Malaysia.

The genus is probably widespread but easily overlooked as 'little brown agarics'. The species are defined not only by the fresh colours of the pileus and stipe but also by the shape and distribution of the cheilo- and caulocystidia. Fourteen distinct entities have been recognised, of which ten have been named. Nine are placed in sg. Conocybe; three are new.