Summary:
Features include 1) a hygrophanous dark brown cap covered with scurfy scales that are the same color, 2) dark yellow-brown to red-brown gills, 3) an equal, yellow-brown stem that is fibrillose, with the dark yellow-brown veil forming a ring zone and scurfy scaly remnants below, 4) growth under hardwoods especially oak, and 5) microscopic characters.

Cap:
1-3cm across, "bell-shaped, then convex to expanded", usually with small, +/- acute umbo; hygrophanous, dark brown (covered with concolorous scales), drying pale yellow-brown, (Knudsen), 2-5cm across, convex then flattening, often umbonate; "very finely fibrous-scurfy-scaly", scales barely darker than cap, (Buczacki)

Flesh:
dark yellow-brown, blackish in stem base, (Knudsen), yellowish to pale brown (Buczacki)

Gills:
fairly distant; dark yellow-brown, (Knudsen), adnate, crowded; "pale ochraceous to red-brown, then red-brown or dark brown"; edges even, (Buczacki)

Stem:
3-6cm x 0.2-0.7cm, equal; yellow-brown, dark umber toward base; fibrillose, universal veil abundant, dark yellow-brown, forming a ring zone and flocculose below, (Knudsen), 2.5-5cm long, equal or narrowing downward; paler at apex; "scurfy scaly below well-defined ring zone", (Buczacki)

Veil:
see STEM

Odor:
faint (Knudsen)

Taste:
indistinct (Buczacki)

Microscopic spores:
spores 7.5-8.5 x 4.5-5 microns, "moderately and fairly coarsely verrucose", (Knudsen), spores 7-9 x 5-6 microns, broadly elliptic, warty, (Buczacki)

Spore deposit:
red-brown (Buczacki)

Notes:
DNA sequencing indicates its presence in BC (Harrower(1)). It is also found in Europe (Knudsen(1)), including the United Kingdom (Buczacki).

EDIBILITY