Brightly coloured wax-gills saprobic on soil and litter. Included in Hygrocybe by some authors.

Ten species have been reported from New Zealand, only those listed below have descriptions or images available from NZFungi.

Hygrophorus is one of the wax-gill mushrooms, a group of small, mostly brightly-coloured, saprobic, soil-inhabiting fungi which have brittle flesh with a waxy feel when crushed between the fingers. The main genera of wax-gills are Hygrophorus, Humidicutis, Hygrocybe and Gliophorus. Hygrophorus species are typically dull in colour. Gliophorus is recognised by the thick glutinous coating over the surface, the caps of Humidicutis are characteristically deeply split at the sides, the other genera distinguished on the basis of microscopic features of hyphae in the gills and the cap. Gills broadly attached to stalk or extending down the stalk, no ring on stalk. Spore print white.

There are about 10 species reported from New Zealand, but some of the names are old and of doubtful value. Most species are rather dull in colour and known from very few collections.

Wax-gills, possibly ectomycorrhizal. Distinguished from other wax gills by having divergent gill trama.

About 6 species have been reported from New Zealand, only those listed below have descriptions or images available from NZFungi.

Pileus fleshy, often lobed, and frequently viscid or moist; gills decurrent, adnate or adnexed, often distant and thick at the base, but margin always thin and entire; stem central; spores smooth. Entire fungus very brittle.

A very natural genus in spite of the various modes of gill attachment. The plants are often brightly coloured, very brittle, soon decaying; allied to Cantharellus, but differing in the. thin, sharp edge of the gills. Fries says the essential feature of the genus consists in the hymenium at length becoming soft and separating from the trama. All the species grow on the ground, usually in open grassy places. Mostly appearing late in the season, and stimulated by cold or even slight frost.