This medium-sized agaric has a bright yellow, greasy cap, lemon-yellow gills becoming cinnamon, and a ring zone on stem; it grows solitary or more typically clustered on stumps and other dead wood of broad-leaf trees, favoring birch, alder and willow in damp locations.

Cap is bright yellow or yellow with some green intermixed, often with rusty brown spots. Gills are adnate to slightly decurrent, straw-yellow to rust brown. Spores are brown. Stem yellow toward top and rusty brown toward base. Ring is zone-like with pallid remnants of veil, very superior.

Similar species Three forms of Pholiota alnicoloa are sometimes classified separately. Pholiota salicola grows on willow, and it tastes bitter; Pholiota flavida and Pholiota pinicola grow on conifers.

Pholiota alnicola on the MushroomExpert.Com Web site.