Blackening waxcap or Crimson waxcap

Cap 2-7 cm, cone-shaped or sharply pointed at first, later flattening into a broad cone with a sharp umbo. Bright orange or red-orange, sometimes with yellow tones. Surface moist and waxy, slimy in wet weather. Key feature: it turns black when damaged.

The cap is 3 to 10 cm across, occasionally 15 cm. It's bell-shaped or conically domed at first, then convex or broadly umbonate and finally flattened, with an irregular edge that becomes wavy in old caps.

It's a dark blood red, often with a narrow yellowish rim. The surface is smooth and greasy or slimy when wet; young caps sometimes have a whitish bloom. As it ages, the cap fades in patches, usually from the centre, to yellowish buff.

Gills widely spaced, waxy and free. Yellowish to orange at first, they turn black when damaged, and in old mushrooms they're completely black. Spore print white.

The gills are thick, waxy and fairly widely spaced, narrowly attached or almost free, and often cross-veined near the cap. They're yellow, orange or reddish.

The spore print is white.

Stem 4-10 cm tall, 0.4-1 cm thick, slender, cylindrical, hollow, sometimes twisted. Orange-yellow to reddish, with lengthwise fibres. With damage and age it turns black all over. No ring.

The stem is 5 to 12 cm tall and 1 to 2 cm thick, stout, dry, coarsely fibrous and streaked lengthways. It's yellow flushed red at the top, orange lower down and white at the base. There's no ring.

The fibrous, streaky stem is the best way to tell it from the scarlet waxcap, whose stem is smooth.

Flesh thin, brittle, yellowish. It turns black when cut or touched, the key diagnostic feature of the group (subgenus Pseudohygrocybe).

The flesh is waxy and fairly firm, and doesn't change colour or blacken when cut.

No distinctive smell, or faintly mushroomy. The taste is mild, but tasting it isn't a good idea.

The smell is indistinct.