A small mushroom, a few inches tall. Cap bell-shaped, whitish or grayish, with striations and often tattered at the edges. Stalk thick, whitish or grayish. Gills crowded, pinkish when young, becoming black with age. As mushroom matures gills and cap turn dark and then liquefy, from the bottom up, into a black inky liquid that can actually be used as ink. It lives on dead roots around stumps, and pops up in dense clusters in the fall.

Known throughout North America and Europe. Occurs in Wildwood around suitable stumps.

The color change from pale to black, followed by liquefaction, is the most striking character, and best cue to its identification.  Three other mushrooms in the Park similarly dissolve themselves.  Scaly Ink Cap (Coprinopsis variegata) is larger and has a scaly cap.  Hare's Foot Inkcap (Coprinopsis lagopua) is much more fragile.  Shaggy Mane (Coprinus comatus) also is much larger and has a distinctive shape and a shaggy cap. Surprisingly, Shaggy Mane is only distantly relatred to the other three. A closer relative to Alcohol Inky is the Non-inky Coprinus (Coprinellus disseminatus), which similarly is small and grows in clusters on wood. However that species matures gray and does not liquefy..

 The species is edible; however, it produces a toxin that interferes with the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase that we use to metabolize alcohol. Thus, consuming this mushroom and any alcoholic beverage within hours of each other can make the consumer very sick, accounting for some of the common names.