Salty mushroom or Pavement mushroom

The cap is 6–15 cm across and very fleshy. Young caps are hemispherical, then convex and flattened, and the margin stays inrolled for a long time.

The skin is white, cream or greyish, dry and smooth at first, often with brownish spots. With age it cracks into coarse brownish scales and furrows, so the cap looks like cracked earth. Mushrooms often come up already dirty, with sand or soil on the cap.

The cap is 5-15 cm across, compact and hemispherical to flat-convex when young, often with an inrolled edge. It's white to cream, sometimes with a pale brownish tint in the centre, and the surface is dry, smooth or finely scaly, often with soil stuck to it. Young caps often have remnants of the partial veil at the edge: a thin membranous fringe.

The gills are free, meaning they don't reach the stem, and very crowded. In young mushrooms they are greyish pink or pink, then reddish brown, and chocolate in mature ones. They are never white in a mature Agaricus.

The spore print is chocolate brown. A white print means it isn't an Agaricus.

The gills are free and crowded, pale pink to bright pink when young and dark brown to chocolate-blackish with age. The spore print is dark brown.

The stem is 4–10 cm tall and 2–4 cm thick, white, firm and solid. It's usually shorter than the cap is wide, which makes the mushroom look squat.

There is a single narrow, sleeve-like ring with an upturned edge; in young mushrooms it is thick and rubbery. There is no sac (volva) at the base. The base often sits deep in the soil, so dig the mushroom up whole to check it.

The stem is 3-8 cm tall and 1.5-3 cm thick: stout, meaty, cylindrical and narrowing toward the base, and white. It has a distinctive double ring: the ring is double and firm, often sitting at mid-stem or lower. The upper part is thicker and funnel-shaped, the lower one thinner and skirt-like (hence the name bitorquis, "with two collars"). This is the diagnostic feature of the species.

The flesh is thick, firm and white. When cut or pressed it reddens, turning orange-red or reddish brown, sometimes vividly, sometimes slowly and only faintly. It never turns yellow. The taste is mild, slightly salty according to some.

The flesh is firm, meaty and white, and when cut it slowly turns pinkish to brownish. It has a pleasant, fresh mushroomy smell and a mild taste, much like the store-bought mushroom.

Descriptions of the smell vary: briny, fishy, unpleasant, and some authors also notice a hint of aniseed. That is where its German and French names meaning smelly mushroom come from. Treat the smell as a hint only: the reddening flesh, the pink to chocolate gills and the single ring decide. A strong smell of ink or carbolic points to the poisonous yellow stainer.

Pleasant and mushroomy, like fresh store-bought button mushrooms. It does not smell of ink or medicine (that would point to the yellow stainer).