Shaggy ink cap or Glistening inkcap

The cap is elongated and egg-shaped at first, 5-15 cm tall and 3-5 cm wide. With age it opens into a bell, then spreads out. It's white, cream or yellowish at the centre, and covered in distinctive soft, fluffy upturned scales. In old mushrooms the gill edges turn pink, then black, and in the end the whole thing dissolves into a black liquid (autodigestion).

Young caps are egg-shaped, 1 to 2.5 cm, then bell-shaped and convex, 2 to 4 cm across, occasionally 5 cm; with age the margin splits and turns up. The colour is honey brown, ochre or russet, darker in the centre and paler at the edge, greying with age. The surface is grooved almost to the centre.

Young caps are covered in tiny white, glittering grains like sugar or mica. Rain and dew wash them off, so older caps are bare.

Gills very crowded, thin, free (not touching the stem). They change colour with age: white at first, then pink, then black as the spores mature. Spore print black.

The gills are crowded, attached or free, white at first, then grey-brown, purplish brown and black. With age they blacken and partly dissolve, though less completely than in the common inkcap.

The spore print is black-brown to black.

Stem 8-20 cm tall, 0.5-2 cm thick, cylindrical, slender, white and hollow. A key feature is the movable ring in the middle or lower part. Surface smooth or finely downy.

The stem is 3 to 8 cm tall, occasionally 10 cm, and 2 to 5 mm thick, white, silky, hollow and brittle, ochre or brownish at the base. Young stems show a fine down under a hand lens. There's no ring.

The flesh is white, soft and tender in young mushrooms. In old ones it quickly blackens and dissolves (autodigestion). Cut a young one and the colour doesn't change.

The flesh is very thin, brittle and whitish.

Faint, pleasant mushroomy smell. The taste is mild and delicate; young caps are reminiscent of a soft omelet.

The smell isn't distinctive.