Key Features:

• Cap white, sometimes with scattered brown fibers or scales, not sticky or slimy.

• Gills free from stalk, pink before and soon after veil breaks, then becoming dark chocolate-brown.

• Flesh not staining appreciably when cut and rubbed.

• Veil present, at first covering gills, but forming little or no ring on stalk; ring, if present, not skirtlike.

• Stalk typically without a crook above base.

•  Base of stalk without a volva (sack or cup) or bulb, the tip not staining yellow when cut.

• Base of stalk with a mild or mushroomy odor when crushed (i.e., not noticeably unpleasant or sweet).

• Growing in grass.

 Other Features: Medium-sized; young cap domed; cap not normally yellowing when rubbed, edge projecting beyond gills; stalk usually tapered at base; spores chocolate-brown.

 Where: In lawns, cemeteries, alpine meadows, and other grassy areas, often in groups or rings; cosmopolitan. "Champignonship" crops most often appear in grazed pastures.

 Edibility: A popular favorite, even among staunch fungo-phobes such as the English.

 Note: The pink-gilled "buttons" are as lovely as they are delicious. Unfortunately, on California lawns they often mingle with poisonous look-alikes. In the mock meadow mushroom and yellow stainer there is a ring on the stalk and often a crook near the base, and the gills do not turn pink until after the veil breaks.