False death cap or Verdigris agaric

Cap 5-10 cm across, hemispherical in young mushrooms, becoming convex-flat with age. Color pale yellow, lemon-citrine, creamy yellow, slightly darker in the center. Surface smooth, slightly slimy in wet weather. The cap often carries large whitish or grayish membranous patches — remnants of the universal veil (volva) that stuck to it as it grew. The cap margin is smooth.

Cap 3-8 cm across, when young convex-bell-shaped with an inrolled margin, with age becoming flat and spread out with a low hump. Cap skin slimy and sticky in wet weather, dry and matte when dry, with a characteristic metallic sheen. Color strikingly blue-green to bluish green, deeper in the center, paler toward the margin, in mature specimens fading to yellowish green. Often with white scales — remnants of the veil — at the margin.

Gilled hymenophore — gills white, free (not attached to the stem), moderately crowded. Spore print white.

Gilled hymenophore — gills attached or slightly decurrent, crowded. Color when young — grayish white, with age becoming violet-blackish from the ripe spores. Spore print dark violet-black — diagnostic for the genus Stropharia.

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

Stem 3-8 cm tall, 0.5-1 cm thick, cylindrical, hollow in old specimens. Color blue-green in the upper part, paler and whitish lower down. Surface slimy and sticky, with white cottony veil remnants. With a prominent membranous RING in the upper third of the stem, often with purple-black spore deposits on the ring.

Flesh white to pale yellow. When cut, it does not change color. Smell distinct, with a note of raw potato or radish — a diagnostic feature of the species.

Flesh thin, brittle, pale greenish white, doesn't change color when cut. Smell faint, mushroomy, with a hint of radish or damp soil, taste mild, bitterish in some populations.

A distinct potato-and-radish smell, with notes of raw potato, radish or a damp cellar. It comes out when you rub the flesh between your fingers. The most important diagnostic feature of the species.

Faint, mushroomy, with a hint of radish or damp soil, neutral.