How to tell Honey fungus from Funeral bell

The cap is 3–12 cm across. Young caps are rounded and convex with an inrolled margin; with age they flatten and spread out, keeping a small bump in the middle.

Its color ranges from honey-yellow and ochre-brown to dark brown with an olive tinge, depending on the host tree. The surface is dotted with small dark scales, densest in the center. In wet weather the cap is slightly slimy; in dry weather it's dry and matte.

The cap is small, 1.5 to 5 cm across and rarely up to 7 cm. It starts convex with an inrolled margin, then opens out almost flat, sometimes with a small bump in the middle.

The colour is honey yellow, ochre or tawny brown. The surface is smooth and slightly sticky in wet weather, and the margin is translucent, so you can see the lines of the gills through it. The cap is hygrophanous: it turns noticeably paler as it dries and is often two-toned. Sheathed woodtuft changes in exactly the same way, so cap colour won't separate them.

The gills are moderately crowded and thin, attached to the stem by a short tooth or running slightly down it.

They're creamy white at first, darkening with age to a dirty ochre, often stained rusty by spores. In young mushrooms a membranous veil (velum) covers the gills; later it stays on the stem as a whitish or pale yellowish ring, one of its ID features.

The gills are attached to the stem or run slightly down it, and they are crowded and narrow. Pale ochre or yellowish at first, they turn rusty brown as the spores ripen.

The spore print is rusty brown. That rules out honey fungus and velvet shank (white prints) and sulphur tuft and conifer tuft (purple-brown to almost black). It won't rule out sheathed woodtuft, though, whose print is the same colour. The spores are warty, roughly 8–10 × 5–6 µm, clearly larger and rougher than the smooth spores of woodtuft, but that only shows under a microscope.

The stem is slender and tall: 6–15 cm long and 0.8–2 cm thick. It's cylindrical, often slightly curved and a little wider at the base. Whitish-yellow at the top, it darkens to rusty brown toward the base.

The surface is fibrous, with small brown scales on the lower part. The ring is membranous, whitish or pale yellowish and set in the upper third of the stem. It usually lasts into old age but can be torn off, so don't rely on the ring alone: check the pale gills and the scaly cap too. There's no volva.

The stem is slender, 2 to 7 cm long and 3 to 8 mm thick, even, and hollow with age. It is pale at the top and darkens to brown or reddish brown towards the base. Below the ring it is covered in pale silvery fibres running lengthwise, without the shaggy scales of sheathed woodtuft. White felty mycelium is visible at the base.

The ring is thin, membranous, whitish to yellowish, and soon turns brown from the spores. It's fragile: often all that's left is a brown band on the stem, and old specimens can lose it entirely. So a missing ring doesn't mean it isn't a funeral bell. There is no volva at the base.

The flesh is thin and white, noticeably fibrous in the stem. It doesn't change color when cut, staying white or cream. In the cap it's softer and juicy; in the stem it's toughish and often hollow in older mushrooms.

Raw, the flesh tastes astringent and slightly bitter, but that's not why it's boiled: raw or undercooked honey fungus upsets the stomach. Cooking gets rid of the bitterness and leaves a pleasant mushroomy flavor.

The flesh is thin, yellowish to watery brown and darker in the stem. It doesn't change colour when cut.

Fresh honey fungus has a faint smell that sources describe in different ways: indistinct, slightly sourish or musty. The sulphur tuft's smell is indistinct too, so you can't tell them apart by smell.

The smell doesn't change when you cut it. Dried, it keeps a light mushroomy aroma, but because of its high moisture content and thin cap it's rarely dried; it's more often pickled or salted.

The smell is often mealy, like fresh flour, especially when the mushroom is crushed. It can also be very faint, so field guides don't treat smell as a reliable feature, and it won't tell a funeral bell from a woodtuft.