Golden Waxcap

Basidiocarps are agaricoid, up to 10 cm (4 in) tall, the cap convex at first (never conical), becoming flat when expanded, up to 7.5 cm (3 in) across. The cap surface is smooth, distinctly viscid when damp, bright lemon-yellow to orange-yellow (rarely orange to red). The lamellae (gills) are waxy, pale cap-coloured, and adnexed (narrowly attached to the stipe). The stipe (stem) is smooth, cylindrical or compressed and grooved, cap-coloured, and moist to somewhat viscid when damp. The spore print is white, the spores (under a microscope) smooth, inamyloid, ellipsoid, about 7.5 to 9.0 by 4.0 to 5.5 μm.

Similar species. The North American Hygrocybe flavescens is very similar in appearance, but is said to have a drier stipe. Boertmann (2010) has suggested it may not be distinct from H. chlorophana. Hygrocybe glutinipes is similarly coloured, but is typically smaller with a glutinous, semi-translucent cap and an equally glutinous stipe. Hygrocybe ceracea is also similarly coloured, but has a waxy (not viscid) cap and stipe and broadly attached, almost decurrent gills.

The golden waxcap is widespread throughout the north temperate zone, occurring in Europe, North America, and northern Asia; it has also been collected from the alpine areas of Mount Wellington in Tasmania, Australia. Like other waxcaps, it grows in old, unimproved, short-sward grassland (pastures and lawns) in Europe, but in woodland in North America and Asia. Recent research suggests waxcaps are neither mycorrhizal nor saprotrophic but may be associated with mosses.

In 1997, the species was featured on a postage stamp issued by the Faeroe Islands.