It grows solitary or few together in hedgebanks and pasture-grounds.
The pileus, which is commonly from four to four and a half inches across, sometimes attains a width of six or seven. At first it is concealed in a volva, but breaking from this it goes through a variety of forms, from that of an ovoid cone to that of a flattened disk. It is umbonated at the centre, and covered with scales, which are formed by the breaking up of the mud-coloured epidermis, and are large, raised, and persistent at the centre; thin, regular, and lighter in hue at the circumference, “the whole surface resembling a delightfully soft, shaggy-brown leather” (_Purton_). The flesh of the pileus is white and cottony, that of the stalk fibrous and somewhat brittle, with a subrubescent tinge, the whole plant turning to a rufous-orange when bruised; the gills are of a pale flesh-colour, occasionally forked, ventricose, denticulate, remote from the stalk, and having a circular pit between it and their central extremities, which are fixed into a kind of collar. The stalk tawny, striped circularly with bands of white, formed by the breaking up of the epidermis; is bulbous at the base and attenuated upwards; its apex rounded, and penetrating deeply through the flesh of the pileus (which receives it as in a socket), gives rise to the central umbo on the upper surface of the cap. The ring moveable, like that of an umbrella-stick, broad, compact, membranaceous immediately round the stalk, and fibrous towards its free margin, is white above and tawny or of the same colour as the stalk on its under surface. The smell is like that of newly-ground meal; the taste is pleasant; the spores are white and elliptic.
The _Ag. excoriatus_ resembles the _Ag. procerus_ very closely, but is easily distinguished from it by its smaller size, the absence of the bulb at the base of the stalk, and the ring being often attached instead of free.
Being equally esculent, the following receipts will serve for both:—
“Comme il est très-léger et très-délicat, il faut le faire sauter dans l’huile fine après l’avoir assaisonné d’un point d’ail, de poivro et de sel; en quelques instants il est cuit. On le mange aussi en fricassée de poulet, cuit sur le gril ou dans la tourtière avec de beurre, de fines herbes, du poivre, du sel, et de la chapelure de pain; on ne mange point la tige, elle est d’une texture coriace” (_Roques_).