Orange grisette or False death cap

The cap is 5 to 12 cm across, egg-shaped as it breaks out of the sac, then bell-shaped and convex, finally flat with a low, darker central bump.

It's yellow-orange to orange-brown with an apricot tinge in the centre, paler towards the edge. The surface is smooth and shiny, slightly sticky when wet, and almost never carries patches of veil. The edge is grooved like a comb.

Cap 5-10 cm across, hemispherical when young, becoming convex to flat with age. Colour pale yellow, lemon-citrine, creamy yellow, slightly darker in the centre. Surface smooth, slightly slimy in wet weather. The cap often carries large white, cream or brownish membranous patches, remnants of the universal veil (volva) left stuck to it as it grew. The margin is smooth.

The gills are free, crowded, white to cream, with shorter gills of varying length in between.

The spore print is white.

Gills white, free (not attached to the stem), moderately crowded. Spore print white.

The stem is 10 to 15 cm tall, up to 20 cm, and 1 to 2 cm thick, tapering upwards, hollow and brittle with age, pale to deep orange with a white-and-orange zig-zag pattern of soft scales, like snakeskin. There's no ring and no bulb.

At the base is a large, thick, loose white sac (volva), often lobed and hidden in the soil.

Stem 6-10 cm tall, 1-1.5 cm thick, cylindrical, with a pronounced bulbous base (like an onion bulb). Colour white to yellowish. A white membranous ring near the top. At the base, a volva forming a rim on the bulb (not a sac, as in the destroying angel).

The flesh is thin, white, soft and fragile, and doesn't change colour when cut.

Flesh white to pale yellow; it does not change colour when cut. The smell is distinct, with a note of raw potato or radish, a diagnostic feature of the species.

The smell is faint: some sources call it sweet and mushroomy, others indistinct.

A distinct potato-and-radish smell: raw potato, radish or a damp cellar. Older mushrooms often smell only faintly, so the base of the stem is more reliable: a round bulb with a narrow rim.