Golden scalycap or Plums and custard

Cap 4-12 cm across, hemispherical with an inrolled margin in young mushrooms, becoming convex to almost flat with age. Color: golden-orange, honey-yellow, with darker reddish-brown flattened scales arranged in concentric rings. In wet weather the cap surface is slightly slimy. In young mushrooms the cap margin carries remnants of a whitish veil.

Cap 4-12 cm across, in young specimens convex with an inrolled margin, becoming with age flattened and spreading, with a slightly wavy margin. The cap skin is golden-yellow, densely covered in tiny red-purple fibrous scales, especially in the center, where the scales can merge into a solid red field. Toward the margin the scales thin out and yellow dominates. In old fruit bodies it is mostly yellow-ochre with rusty spots.

The hymenophore is made of gills — attached to the stem, moderately crowded. When young they are light yellow, darkening with age to rusty brown as the spores ripen. Spore print rusty brown. In young mushrooms the gills are covered by a whitish cobweb-like veil, which tears and leaves a ring-like remnant on the stem.

Gilled hymenophore — the gills are notched-attached to the stem, crowded, fleshy, distinctly golden-yellow (one of the brightest yellow hymenophores among the knights). Spore print white to cream — a hallmark of the genus Tricholomopsis (not pink, as in Rhodocollybia).

Stem 5-12 cm tall, 0.8-1.5 cm thick, cylindrical, often curved from growing on the vertical surface of a trunk. Color: yellow at the top, dark rusty toward the base. On the stem there is a ring zone from veil remnants (not a true ring, but a zone with scales). Below the ring zone the brown scales are more pronounced.

Stem 4-8 cm tall, 0.8-2 cm thick, cylindrical, hollow inside in older specimens. Color: yellowish to yellow-orange, the lower part covered in the same red-purple scales as the cap. Surface dry and fibrous. No ring.

The flesh is firm, yellow, becoming tough in the stem with age. It does not change color when cut. The smell is distinctly mushroomy and pleasant in young specimens. The taste is mild at first, then slightly bitter — the bitterness disappears after boiling.

Flesh yellowish, thin and cottony in the cap, rather tough in the stem. No noticeable color change when cut. Smell faintly mushroomy, with a note of wood or rotten wood in mature specimens, taste indistinct or bitterish.

Pleasant and mushroomy, with a light nutty or resinous note in young specimens. In old ones — sharper, sour and astringent.

Faintly mushroomy with woody notes, nothing distinctive. Not sharp.