This small inky cap

The cap's margin is radially lined, with furrows going almost to the cap's center.

The gills, which attach to the stem, begin dingy white, become gray, and then blacken with the black spores. Although they become inky, they never completely disintegrate.

has a tawny-brown cap only 1-2 inches wide, egg-shaped, becoming bell-shaped, finally convex. When it's young, it's covered with distinctive, glistening granules that resemble sand or mica.

This mushroom lives on dead wood. It grows throughout North America, and you can find it from early spring to late fall, all year in California.

Although non-poisonous, it's much too small and watery to be worth eating. It nearly vanishes to nothing when you cook it, and it has almost no flavor.

Once when I found a large quantity of very fresh mica caps a little less small than usual, I tried to get around this problem by cooking them on a cookie sheet with spices and a little olive oil under the broiler. They still shrunk to almost nothing.

When I scraped off the sludge with a spatula, preparing to wash the cookie sheet, I tasted some, and it was good enough to use as a spread. Still, it wasn't worth the trouble.