How to tell Weeping widow from Funeral bell

The cap is 3 to 10 cm across, occasionally 12 cm. It starts bell-shaped or hemispherical with an inrolled margin, then becomes convex to almost flat, usually with a low, broad bump.

The surface is dry and densely fibrous, woolly or finely scaly, with fibres radiating from the centre. It's tawny, ochre or yellow-brown, darker in the centre. A pale, ragged fringe of veil hangs from the edge and wears off with age.

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 attached and crowded, pale yellow-brown at first, then dark brown, mottled and almost black, with white edges. In damp weather droplets form along the edges, turn black with spores and leave dark spots. On young caps a cobweb-like veil covers the gills.

The spore print is black or blackish brown.

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 5 to 12 cm tall and 0.5 to 1.5 cm thick, whitish at the top and browner below, fibrous or scaly, hollow and brittle.

There's no true ring: near the top the veil leaves a fibrous ring zone that turns black with spores, like a pen line round the stem.

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, whitish to watery brown, browner at the stem base, and doesn't change colour when cut.

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

The smell is indistinct.

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.