Common funnel or Tawny funnel

The cap is 3-8 cm across, convex when young, later becoming funnel-shaped with a clearly sunken centre, often with a small blunt bump in the hollow. The colour is pale beige to light tan or pinkish ochre, a little darker in young mushrooms and paler, almost cream, in mature ones. The surface is smooth and silky-matte, and the cap skin is thin.

The cap is 4–10 cm across, occasionally bigger. Young caps are convex with an inrolled margin, then flatten, sink in the centre and become funnel-shaped, often with a wavy edge and little spouts. Late in the season caps can stay squat, with hardly any dip.

The colour is tawny, orange-brown, brick or reddish brown, and paler, almost yellowish in some specimens. The surface is smooth: shiny in mushrooms from conifer woods, matt and silky in those from broadleaf woods. As it dries the cap fades to buff, and old caps develop darker spots that give a marbled look.

The gills are crowded, thin and strongly decurrent, running down the stem. They're whitish to cream, turning cream-ochre with age. The spore print is white to pale cream.

The gills are very crowded and narrow, with many short gills in between, and run far down the stem. They start whitish or cream, turn tawny cream and then brownish in old specimens, but always stay paler than the cap. They don't fork, and they come away from the flesh fairly easily.

The spore print is white to cream, sometimes with a faint pinkish tint. A brown print means it isn't a tawny funnel; the brown rollrim, for example, gives one.

The stem is 3-7 cm tall and 0.5-1 cm thick, cylindrical or slightly thicker toward the base. It's whitish to beige, paler than the cap or matching it, with white mycelial fuzz at the bottom. The surface is smooth or has fine lengthwise fibres. No ring.

The stem is 3–7 cm tall and 0.5–1.5 cm thick, the same colour as the cap but paler. It's tough, slightly fibrous, and becomes hollow with age.

The base is covered in fluffy white mycelium that binds needles and litter into a clump. There is no ring, no veil remnants and no volva.

The flesh is thin, white to cream, soft and brittle. It doesn't change colour when cut. The taste is mild and not distinctive.

The flesh is thin, especially in the cap, whitish to pale cream, doesn't change colour when broken and has no milk. The taste is unremarkable, sometimes slightly bitter.

Faint and sweetish, often with a hint of bitter almond; some people smell new-mown hay. Sometimes there's hardly any smell at all. The taste is mild and delicate.

The smell is faint, sweetish or slightly spicy, and in many specimens barely noticeable. Don't rely on smell to identify it: the toxic look-alike Paralepistopsis amoenolens also smells sweet and floral, only more strongly.