How to tell Stinking dapperling from Lepiota helveola

The cap is 1.5–5 cm across, occasionally up to 6. Young caps are bell-shaped or bluntly conical, then convex, later flattening, often with a low central bump. The surface is dry, not sticky.

The background is white or cream. The tawny, orange-brown or reddish-brown skin breaks up into small scales as the cap expands. They lie in concentric rings and thin out towards the edge. The centre stays a solid, smooth dark patch, and this 'eye' on a pale cap is usually the first thing you notice. The margin is sometimes finely lined.

The cap is small, 1.5-4 cm across, hemispherical when young, later convex to flattened with a small bump in the centre. It's cream or pale ochre, with characteristic pinkish-brown or ochre-brick scales scattered irregularly or in concentric rings, denser toward the centre. Beneath the scales the surface is smooth.

The gills are free, meaning they don't reach the stem, crowded, with short gills in between. They are white or cream and darken only slightly with age.

The spore print is white to creamy. Pink or chocolate gills mean it isn't a dapperling but, for example, an Agaricus mushroom. Even so, a white print doesn't make a small parasol edible.

Gills: crowded, thin and free (not attached to the stem), white to cream. The spore print is white, a critical feature for telling it apart from Agaricus, whose print is blackish-brown.

The stem is 2–7 cm tall and only 2–5 mm thick, even or slightly thicker towards the base, smooth, silky, hollow and fragile. It's whitish or cream, pinkish or brownish towards the base, with white mycelial fluff at the very bottom.

The ring on the upper stem is white, thin, membranous and very fragile. Older specimens often have none at all, so a missing ring doesn't rule out a dapperling. There is no volva or sac at the base.

The stem is 2.5-4.5 cm tall and 0.3-0.7 cm thick, cylindrical and slender. It's whitish toward the top, with pinkish-brown tones lower down. The ring is missing or reduced to a thin, indistinct band that's practically invisible on mature mushrooms. The stem flesh is thin and becomes hollow in old mushrooms.

The flesh is thin and white and doesn't change colour when broken. Field guides describe the taste as mild or unremarkable.

The flesh is thin and white, with a pink tint at the base of the stem. It doesn't change colour quickly when cut.

The smell is strong and unpleasant: sharp, like rubber, coal gas or chemicals, which is how it earned the name 'stinking'. Some people pick up something fruity or sweetish in it. The smell helps identify the species, but it doesn't make the mushroom any safer.

Faint and neutral, or with a hint of raw dough; nothing alarming. The taste is mild. Neither smell nor taste gives any hint of deadly toxicity, and that's the treachery of amatoxin mushrooms: there's no sensory warning at all.