Cap: width 50-120 mm. Stem: width 8-15 mm; height 30-75 mm.
Description:
Cap: at first convex with a strongly inrolled, downy margin, but then expanded and later frequently depressed towards the centre, clay-coloured, ochre or yellow-rust, slightly velvety but becoming smooth or sticky particularly in wet weather and readily bruising red-brown when fresh.
Stem: central or slightly eccentric, thickened upwards, fibrillose-silky, similarly coloured to the cap but typically streaked with red-brown particularly with age.
Gills: ochre or yellow-brown then rust and finally darker brown, decurrent, crowded, often branched and united about the apex of the stem; easily peeled from the flesh with the fingers and rapidly becoming red-brown on handling.
Flesh: thick, soft and with slightly astringent smell and yellowish to brownish but becoming red-brown after exposure to the air.
Spore-print: rust-brown.
Spores: medium-sized, ellipsoid, smooth, deep yellow-brown and rarely greater than 10 µm in length (8-10 × 5-6 µm).
Marginal cystidia: numerous lance-shaped or spindle-shaped.
Facial cystidia: scattered and similar in shape to marginal cystidia.