The species was first described as
Agaricus alphitophorus by
Miles Joseph Berkeley in 1877, based on specimens collected in 1873 from the Devonshire Marsh, a
peatland in
Bermuda.
Pier Andrea Saccardo transferred it to the genus
Mycena in 1887.
William Alphonso Murrill placed the species in
Prunulus in 1916.
Jakob Emanuel Lange's Mycena osmundicola, published in 1914, is a
synonym. P. Manimohan and K.M. Leelavathy defined the
varieties distincta and
globispora from southern India in 1989. It is
classified in the
section Saccharifera of
Mycena.
Similar species Mycena adscendens has a swollen or disk-like stipe base; also, the stipe surface is more densely hairy with caulocystida.
Mycena stylobates has a pruinose stipe that arises from a basal disc, but the cap is up to 10 mm and lacks white granules. White
Hemimycena species lack granules and all have inamyloid spores. ==References==