A distinctive brown, squamulose species with large, knobbly spores and conspicuous awl-shaped cheilocystidia.

Pileus: 10-25 mm diam., hemispherical becoming convex, and in age often pulvinate with a depressed or subconcave centre. Margin incurved. Surface brown, densely covered with soot-brown fibrils and scales; dry, not striate and not hygrophanous.
Lamellae: (L 10-16, l 1-3) adnate-emarginate, whitish when young, becoming grey-pink; edges concolorous and not fimbriate.
Stipe: 20-40 x 2-3 mm, cylindrical, often curved near the base, grey to purplish-brown, densely covered with concolorous dots, at least near the apex; dry, hollow; solitary or in clusters.
Context: light brown.
Odour/taste: not distinctive.