How to tell Wood woollyfoot from Funeral bell

The cap is 2 to 7 cm across, usually 3 to 6 cm, convex with an inrolled margin at first, then flattening, sometimes with a low broad bump or a slight dip; old caps have a wavy, wrinkled or grooved edge.

The surface is hygrophanous, smooth or finely fibrous, dry and matt, sometimes with small white felty spots. The colour varies a lot: pinkish cream, yellowish buff, ochre or reddish brown, darker in the centre.

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 widely spaced and narrow, narrowly attached or almost free, pale yellowish at first and turning reddish brown with age.

The spore print is white to pale cream.

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 3 to 8 cm tall and 0.3 to 0.8 cm thick, cylindrical and slightly wider at the base, tough and hollow, cap-coloured or yellowish brown, paler and finely frosted at the top. There's no ring.

The lower half is densely covered in white to yellowish woolly hairs that bind the leaf litter at the base.

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, tough and pale yellowish to brownish yellow.

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

The smell is faint and indistinct, slightly sour according to some descriptions. The taste is burning and peppery.

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.