Golden scalycap or Shaggy scalycap

The cap is 4-12 cm across, hemispherical with an inrolled margin when young, becoming convex to almost flat with age. It's golden-orange, honey-yellow, with darker reddish-brown flattened scales in concentric rings. In wet weather the surface is slightly slimy. On young caps the margin carries remnants of a whitish veil.

The cap is 4–12 cm across, and large old ones can be bigger. It starts out convex with an inrolled margin, then opens up to broadly convex with age, though the margin stays rolled under for a long time.

The background is straw-yellow or ochre and densely covered in brown triangular scales. They don't lie flat: they stick out and curl upward, arranged roughly in concentric rings. The cap stays dry even in wet weather, and rain doesn't wash the scales off. That's what sets it apart from the golden scalycap, whose cap turns slimy and sticky in the rain.

The gills are attached to the stem and moderately crowded. They're light yellow when young, darkening to rusty brown as the spores ripen. The spore print is rusty brown. In young mushrooms a whitish, cobweb-like veil covers the gills; it tears and leaves a ring-like remnant on the stem.

The gills are crowded and attached to the stem or running slightly down it. On young mushrooms they're pale greyish yellow and covered by a cobweb-like veil. Later they turn greenish yellow, and as the spores ripen they darken to a cinnamon or rusty brown.

The spore print is rusty brown. When the mushrooms grow in a cluster, the spores often settle as a brown dusting on the lower caps. Spores are the easiest way to tell it from honey fungus, which has a white spore print. They won't help with sheathed woodtuft, though: its spore print is brown too.

The stem is 5-12 cm tall and 0.8-1.5 cm thick, cylindrical, and often curved because it grows from the vertical surface of a trunk. It's yellow at the top, dark rusty toward the base, with 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.

The stem is 6–15 cm tall and 0.7–1.5 cm thick, firm and often curved, because the mushrooms crowd each other in the cluster. Above the ring it's pale and smooth; below the ring it's covered in the same rusty, upturned scales as the cap, on a yellowish background. Toward the base it can darken to reddish brown.

The ring is fluffy, almost felt-like, and scaly as well. It doesn't last: it soon breaks into shreds, and on older mushrooms often only a ring zone is left.

The flesh is firm and yellow, getting tough in the stem with age. It doesn't change color when cut. Young mushrooms smell distinctly and pleasantly mushroomy. The taste is mild at first, then slightly bitter, and the bitterness goes away with boiling.

The flesh is firm and pale yellowish, fibrous in the stem. We cut one stem lengthwise: the flesh was light yellowish and didn't change color. The taste is bitterish, and some people find it plainly unpleasant.

Pleasant and mushroomy, with a light nutty or resinous note when young. Old mushrooms smell sharper, sour and astringent.

The smell is noticeable: it often recalls radish, garlic or onion. Its strength varies, and some mushrooms smell only faintly.

The honey fungus and sheathed woodtuft it gets confused with both smell weak and unremarkable. So if a cluster at the foot of a tree smells of radish or garlic, that's a good hint you're looking at a scalycap.