New Zealand: "West coast, between Black-water and Waiuta; 2.iv.1968, leg. Horak (PDD, 27123: holotype; ZT, 68/249: isotype)".

Pileus -40 mm diam., hemispherical becoming convex, umbo or papilla absent; brown; densely covered with coarse, squarrose, concolorous scales, up to 5 mm high, margin with brownish fibrillose dentate remnants of cortina; dry. Lamellae adnate to adnexed, densely crowded, not ventricose; yellowish when young turning yellow-beige later brown, white fimbriate edges. Stipe 35-60 x 5-7 mm, cylindrical, equal or attenuated towards the base; brown; densely covered with brown wool-like fibrils, cortina conspicuous and persistent; dry, solid, single in groups. Context white in pileus, brown in stipe. Odour not distinctive.
Spores 7-9 x 4-5 µm, amygdaliform, smooth, brown. Basidia 25-30 x 5-6 µm, 4-spored. Cheilocystidia 15-25 x 12-24 µm, ovoid or clavate, forming sterile edge, thin-walled, hyaline. Pleurocystidia 40-60 x 12-22 µm, fusoid, thick-walled only near apex, brown, rarely crystals encrusted, scattered. Caulocystidia none. Cuticle a trichoderm of bundled cylindrical hyphae (10-16 µm diam.), encrusted with brown pigment. Clamp connections numerous.

On rotten wood in Nothofagus forests (N. fusca). New Zealand.

Pileo -40 mm lato, ex hemisphaerico convexo, squamis conspicuis squarrosis instructo, brunneo. Lamellis adnatis, ex stramineo brunneis. Stipite -60 x -7 mm, cylindraceo, pileo concolori, fibrillis lanatis dense obtecto. Odore nullo. Sporis 7-9 x 4-5 µm, amygdaliformibus, levibus. Cheilocystidiis e clavato-ovoideis, pleurocystidiis fusoideis, apicaliter metuloideis. Habitatio ad lignum putridum in silvis nothofagineis. Nova Zeiandia. Typus (PDD, 27123).

Among the known species of Inocybe in New Zealand, this is the most striking representative. Taxonomically I. strobilomyces is rather close to the genus Phaeomarasmius, but because of the few crystal-bearing pleurocystidia I prefer to keep it in Inocybe.