A small red waxgill with a brilliant scarlet to blood‑red cap, dry and minutely fibrillose‑scurfy, fading to red‑yellow in age. The incurved margin, triangular non‑ventricose lamellae, and slender tapering stipe make it characteristic of the Southern Hemisphere miniata complex. Cystidia absent.

Pileus: to 35 mm, convex, soon expanded with plane to depressed centre; margin always incurved, never upturned; brilliant red (scarlet, blood red) when young and fresh, fading to red-yellow, often bleaching in old specimens; dry; minutely fibrillose to scurfy-scaly, especially at disc; margin non-striate.
Lamellae: 6-18(±1-3-5), broadly adnate to subdecurrent; often ± triangular; to 5 mm wide; not ventricose; concolorous with pileus, occasionally with orange tint; bleaching to whitish, reddish-pink or pale orange; edges concolorous, entire.
Stipe: 15-40 x 1.5-4 mm, cylindrical, equal or often tapering into base and enlarged into pileus; concolorous with pileus, paler or whitish toward base; dry, glabrous (rarely minutely fibrillose); hollow to fistulose; single or caespitose.
Context: red beneath cuticle of pileus and cortex of stipe, otherwise pale yellow‑orange.
Odour/tast: not distinctive.