Glistening inkcap or Common ink cap

Young caps are egg-shaped, 1 to 2.5 cm, then bell-shaped and convex, 2 to 4 cm across, occasionally 5 cm; with age the margin splits and turns up. The colour is honey brown, ochre or russet, darker in the centre and paler at the edge, greying with age. The surface is grooved almost to the centre.

Young caps are covered in tiny white, glittering grains like sugar or mica. Rain and dew wash them off, so older caps are bare.

The cap is egg-shaped or bell-shaped at first, 4-8 cm tall and 3-7 cm wide, opening up with age. It's grey or grey-brown, sometimes with an olive tinge, and darker in the centre. The surface has distinctive radial ribs and grooves, with small scales in the centre. In old mushrooms it blackens and dissolves.

The gills are crowded, attached or free, white at first, then grey-brown, purplish brown and black. With age they blacken and partly dissolve, though less completely than in the common inkcap.

The spore print is black-brown to black.

The gills are very crowded, thin and free. They're white in young mushrooms, then turn grey, pinkish and finally black before digesting themselves. The spore print is black.

The stem is 3 to 8 cm tall, occasionally 10 cm, and 2 to 5 mm thick, white, silky, hollow and brittle, ochre or brownish at the base. Young stems show a fine down under a hand lens. There's no ring.

The stem is 8-15 cm tall and 0.5-1.5 cm thick, cylindrical, white and hollow. There's no distinct ring, though there may be a thin ring-like thickening near the base. The surface is smooth or has barely noticeable down.

The flesh is very thin, brittle and whitish.

The flesh in the cap is thin and white to greyish. In old mushrooms it quickly blackens and digests itself. Cut a young one and the colour barely changes.

The smell isn't distinctive.

A faint, pleasant mushroomy smell. The taste is mild and unremarkable.