 In several papers, Karsten and Murrill used the name "Hydrocybe", but this is now taken as an orthographic variant of "Hygrocybe".The generic name is derived from the Greek ῦγρὁς (= moist) + κυβη (= head).Despite its comparatively early publication, the genus "Hygrocybe" was not widely accepted until the 1970s, most previous authors treating it as a synonym of "Hygrophorus", a related genus of ectomycorrhizal agarics.