Stevenson 's description of the holotype of L. crawfordii
"Pileus 30 x 20 mm, reddish brown (russet), smooth, pliant; flesh concolorous. Gills decurrent, light reddish brown, moderately crowded, deep, margins lacerate. Stipe 1.5--2.0 x 0.3-0.4 cm, lateral, reddish brown, tough, hollow, smooth to velutinous. Spores 3.5-4 µm diam., strongly amyloid, globose, ornamented with fine ridges. Hymenophoral trama more or less regular. Cuticle of loosely woven hyphae about 5 µm diam., with walls 0.5 - 1 µm thick and clamp connections.
HABITAT: on fallen rotting wood, Nelson, 6 July 1949, A. Crawford in Stevenson."

Other characters of the holotype
Spores 4-4.5 x 3.5-4.0 (4.1 x 3.6) µm, Q = 1.1, subglobose, with very distinct, echinulate, strongly amyloid wall ornamentation. Basidia 20-25 x 5 - 6 µm, shortly clavate to subcylindrical, 4-spored, extending when mature. There is a well-developed system of oleiferous hyphae especially in the trama and to a lesser extent in the context. The oleiferous hyphae are pale yellow (in KOH), 5-7 µm in diam., contents finely guttulate. These hyphae penetrate the hymenium, their rounded or pointed ends extending some distance beyond the basidia as pseudocystidia, both on the lamellar margin and even more plentifully on the lamellar face. No leptocystidia seen. The oleiferous hyphae are very plentiful in the outer part of the trama, adjacent to the narrow subhymenium. The central region of the trama is of parallel, descending, thin-walled, narrow (up to 3 µm diam.), clamped hyphae. The context is also a mixture of interwoven, thin-walled, clamped hyphae, up to 6 µm diam., and somewhat contorted, oleiferous hyphae. No thick-walled, amyloid hyphae were observed in the trama or context. Pileipellis of narrow (up to 4 µm) repent, thin-walled, pale yellow, clamped hyphae with infrequent, upturned pseudocystidia from the context. No layer of very thick-walled hyphae was seen in the pileipellis as described by Stevenson. Grooved fragments of the stipe show protruding, inflated, thick-walled pseudocystidia.

Information from additional collections
Basidiomata occurring singly or in clusters of 2 - 3, with stipes joined at the base only, or partly fused to about half their length. Pileus 15-45 mm diam., convex to depressed, surface completely smooth, or tomentose towards the stipe attachment. Lamellae decurrent, extending in ridges down the stipe, pale brown, thin, broad (5-6 mm), with deeply lacerate margin. Stipe usually lateral, occasionally excentric, 12-50 x 5- 6 mm (or 50-55 x 15 mm when fused), longitudinally grooved, surface smooth or velvety or covered with a dense, whitish tomentum. Taste and smell unknown, not acrid when dried. Spore print white, becoming cream with age.
Microscopic characters were as for the type but the stipe could be studied more fully. Stipitipellis is composed of narrow, pale brown, parallel, clamped hyphae with, towards the base, superficial patches of tomentum consisting of a tangle of narrow, pale brown, sparsely clamped hyphae of 2 - 3 µm diam. with slightly thickened walls. In the ridged region of the stipe many pseudocystidia protrude from the surface. Towards the base of the stipe these protrusions range in length from 50-100 by 5 - 13 µm, all inflated and thick-walled to some degree, clavate, strangulated or tapering apically, occasionally branched, decreasing in density towards the lamellae and thinner-walled. Pileipellis is mostly smooth but may have scurfy patches of tomentum made up of bundles of long, narrow (up to 2 µm diam.), colourless hyphae with occasional clamp connections, and protruding cylindrical or lanceolate, thin-walled pseudocystidia. No chlamydospores or amyloid hyphae found.
HABITAT: on dead wood in Nothofagus forest.

Reinstated as Lentinellus crawfordii G.Stev. by Segedin et al. (1995) following the recognition that the type is a mixed collection of two species, one a Lentinellus sp., answering to Stevenson's description of L. crawfordii, and the other a species of Pleurotus, P. purpureo-olivaceus (G.Stev.) Segedin et al. Lentinellus crawfordii is described in full below.

The Stevenson collection consists of many small pieces which are apparently the shattered remains of two basidiomata. Two lateral stipes are recognisable, one paler than the other. All fragments have a dark-coloured pileal surface but some have grey lamellae which are concolorous with the lamellae on the pale stipe while the others have dark reddish brown lamellae matching the lamellae on the dark reddish brown stipe. The reddish brown fragments show the characters of Lentinellus, agreeing with Stevenson's description and illustration of L. crawfordii. The grey fragments show the characters of Pleurotus and match well with those of Pleurotus purpureo-olivaceus (G.Stev.) (Segedin et al. 1995). The latter is evidently the part of the collection studied by Miller & Stewart (1971) for which they made the superfluous combination Pleurotus crawfordii (G.Stev.) O.K.Mill. & L.Stewart, whereas the reddish brown fragments are from the basidioma originally described by Stevenson as L. crawfordii.