How to tell Prunes and custard from Sulphur tuft

Cap 2–7 cm across, conical or bell-shaped in young mushrooms, then flattened. Sulphur yellow or egg-yolk yellow, often orange-brown in the center. Surface smooth, moist, without scales. Margin uneven, in young mushrooms joined to the stem by a cobwebby veil.

Cap 3-8 cm across, when young convex with an inrolled margin, with age becoming flat and spread out with a slightly sunken center. The cap skin is dry-fibrous, golden yellow, densely covered in small grey-brown fibrous scales, especially in the center. The base color is golden yellow to yellow-orange.

Gills crowded, yellow or yellow-green at first, then darkening to gray-green or brownish olive — this is the key feature that distinguishes it from the edible honey fungus (whose gills are whitish or cream). Spore print purplish brown.

Gilled hymenophore: the gills are notched (emarginate) at the stem, crowded, fleshy, distinctly yellow. Spore print white to cream.

Stem thin, 4–10 cm tall, 0.4–0.8 cm thick, yellowish in the upper part, brownish or rusty below, fibrous. No ring, or a faint fibrous ring that soon disappears — the lack of a distinct ring sets it apart from honey fungus.

Stem 3-7 cm tall, 0.5-1.2 cm thick, cylindrical, hollow in old specimens. Color yellowish to yellow-orange, with fine brownish-fibrous scales on the lower part. Surface dry-fibrous. No ring.

Flesh yellowish, thin, bitter-tasting — very bitter when raw. But cooking removes the bitterness while the toxins remain, so in a finished dish the mushroom won't give itself away.

Flesh yellowish, thin and cottony in the cap, rather tough in the stem. When cut, there are no noticeable color changes. Smell faintly mushroomy with a woody note, taste mild with a sourish-bitter aftertaste.

Smell mushroomy but indistinct, so it is of little help in identification.

Faintly mushroomy with woody notes, not distinctive.