Pileus ovato-globose, obtuse, with the margin incurved, and entirely covered with a dense unbroken coating of dark-purple or reddish-brown velvety nap, when young; when older becoming campanulate and often umbonate, purple, all one colour; at maturity expanded, often umbonate, the cuticle broken up into small purple innate fascicles of down on a yellow ground; always dry, 6-14 cm. diameter; flesh thick, soft, deep-yellow from the earliest stage, becoming golden-yellow when broken; gills broadly adnexed, yellow from the first, crowded, edge thickened, floccose, and deeper yellow than the rest of the gill; spores subglobose, 5-6 µ diameter; stem 5-9 cm. long, up to 2 cm. thick, fleshy, imperfectly hollow, soft, rather bulbous when short, ventricose when elongated, yellow, variegated, especially upwards, with purplish floccose squamules.

New Zealand. Australia, Europe, United States.

On the ground.

Inodorous ; size very variable. Readily distinguished by the yellow flesh and gills.