Orange grisette or Tawny grisette

The cap is 5 to 12 cm across, egg-shaped as it breaks out of the sac, then bell-shaped and convex, finally flat with a low, darker central bump.

It's yellow-orange to orange-brown with an apricot tinge in the centre, paler towards the edge. The surface is smooth and shiny, slightly sticky when wet, and almost never carries patches of veil. The edge is grooved like a comb.

Cap 4-9 cm across, hemispherical to conical-convex when young, later convex with a low umbo. Reddish-brown, orange-brown or honey-brown, darker at the centre and paler at the margin. The surface is smooth, slightly slimy in wet weather. The margin has characteristic radial grooves, a diagnostic feature of section Vaginatae.

The gills are free, crowded, white to cream, with shorter gills of varying length in between.

The spore print is white.

The gills are free, crowded and pure white (not attached to the stem). Spore print white, as in all amanitas.

The stem is 10 to 15 cm tall, up to 20 cm, and 1 to 2 cm thick, tapering upwards, hollow and brittle with age, pale to deep orange with a white-and-orange zig-zag pattern of soft scales, like snakeskin. There's no ring and no bulb.

At the base is a large, thick, loose white sac (volva), often lobed and hidden in the soil.

Stem 8-15 cm tall, 0.5-1.2 cm thick, thin and slender. Whitish, with fine lengthwise brownish fibres or a fine mesh. No ring: that's the key difference from its deadly relatives. At the base is a sac-like, eggshell volva (whitish or brownish-tinged), just like the destroying angel's.

The flesh is thin, white, soft and fragile, and doesn't change colour when cut.

Flesh thin, soft, white to pale cream. It does not change colour when cut. The smell is faint and neutral.

The smell is faint: some sources call it sweet and mushroomy, others indistinct.

Faint, neutral, mushroomy, with no distinctive notes.