 The cap develops from the upper section of this division, the stem from the lower.This species grows solitarily or in small groups on the ground or in forest duff in mature coniferous forests, occasionally abundant on grassy edges of the forest, rarely on badly decayed conifer logs.It is an ectomycorrhizal mushroom, meaning that the fungal hyphae form sheaths around the rootlets of certain trees, exchanging nutrients with them in a mutualistic relationship.