Scaly knight or Birch knight

The cap is 3-8 cm across, distinctly conical or bell-shaped when young, becoming flat-conical with a low, broad umbo with age. The cap skin is dry and fibrous-scaly, with distinctly raised fine scales, especially toward the margin (where they're often curled back). The colour is rusty chestnut-red, with a darker centre and a paler margin, slightly darker in wet weather. The margin is inrolled when young, with felty veil remnants.

The cap is 4–12 cm across, occasionally up to 15 cm. Young caps are convex, then flatten, often with a low umbo, and can be slightly sunken in the centre.

The colour is reddish brown to yellowish brown: darker in the centre, paler and yellowish at the margin. Fine brown fibres radiate from the centre. The skin is sticky, slimy and shiny in wet weather and matt when dry. The margin is often grooved, and old caps may crack into small scales.

The gills are sinuately attached to the stem, moderately crowded and fleshy. They start whitish and with age become cream-coloured with distinct rusty spots on the edges and faces, a characteristic feature. Spore print white.

The gills are crowded, fairly broad and notched where they meet the stem. Young gills are pale yellow or yellowish white, and with age they develop rusty brown spots, with brownish edges.

Yellowish gills are unusual in the genus: most knights, including the poisonous brown ones, have white or cream gills. The spore print is white.

The stem is 4-8 cm tall and 0.7-1.5 cm thick, cylindrical, hollow in old mushrooms. It's whitish at the top, brownish-chestnut and scaly-fibrous below. The surface is dry and fibrous, with characteristic raised scales similar to those on the cap. No ring.

The stem is 4–13 cm tall and 0.7–2 cm thick, cylindrical, sometimes thickening towards the base. It's coloured like the cap but paler, yellowish brown, lighter at the top, and streaked with darker brown lengthways fibres.

Young stems are solid and slightly sticky; old ones become hollow. There is no ring and no volva.

The flesh is thin, brittle, whitish to cream; where cut it turns pinkish or slowly takes on a brownish-red tint. The smell is faintly mealy or unpleasantly musty, the taste distinctly bitterish and astringent.

The flesh is firm. It's whitish to pale yellow in the cap and distinctly yellow in the stem, and that's the easiest way to tell the birch knight from other brown knights, whose flesh is white. It doesn't change colour when cut. The taste is mealy, sometimes slightly bitter.

Faintly mealy with a hint of rotting wood, not especially pleasant.

The smell is mealy, like raw dough, sometimes with a hint of cucumber. It's not much help for identification: some poisonous brown knights smell of flour too.