How to tell Tawny funnel from Fool's funnel

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 cap is 2-5 cm across, convex when young, becoming flat and spread out or slightly funnel-shaped, with a thin wavy margin. It's whitish to cream, with characteristic pinkish-cream concentric zones or streaks running from the centre to the margin, a diagnostic feature. The surface is silky-matte and somewhat sticky in wet weather.

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 gills are crowded and thin, running decurrent down the stem (typical of the genus Clitocybe). They're whitish to pale pink. The spore print is white.

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 stem is 2-5 cm tall and 0.4-0.8 cm thick, slender, cylindrical and often curved. It's whitish to cream, with white mycelial fuzz at the base. The surface is smooth, with no ring.

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.

The flesh is thin, white, watery and brittle, and it doesn't change colour when cut. The smell is faint and sweetish, the taste mild: dangerously "normal".

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.

Faint, sweetish and nondescript, with nothing alarming about it. The taste is mild. Neither the smell nor the taste gives away that it's poisonous.