Porpolomopsis calyptriformis

The cap is the easiest feature to use for identification. It starts narrowly conical and keeps a sharp umbo when it expands, reaching up to 7.5 centimetres (3 inches) across. It often splits as it opens, and its margins turn upward.

The cap surface is smooth to fibrillose and slightly shiny or greasy. It is pale rose-pink to lilac-pink, though it is occasionally white. The gills are widely spaced and waxy, and they match the cap colour or are whiter.

The stipe can reach 16 centimetres (6¼ inches) long. It is smooth, white to pale cap-coloured, and has no ring. The spore print is white, and the smooth, ellipsoid spores measure about 6.5 to 8.0 by 4.5 to 5.5 micrometres.

The pink waxcap is widespread but generally rare across Europe. Its stronghold is the United Kingdom, where it is not uncommon.

Like other waxcaps, it grows in old grassland that has not been treated with fertilizers, including pastures and lawns with short turf. Reports from North America exist, but DNA-sequenced specimens from there are not the same as the European species.

In the monthly observation data, the species peaks in autumn, with the strongest presence in October and November.

The pink waxcap is reportedly edible. Its use as food is the main human connection the evidence describes.

The pink waxcap is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It depends on waxcap grasslands, which are declining as agricultural practices change.

The main pressure is the loss of that grassland habitat. Changing farming methods have reduced the old, unimproved pastures the species needs.

It is one of 33 larger fungi proposed for international protection under the Bern Convention. It also appears on official or provisional national red lists of threatened fungi in Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany (Bavaria), Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, and Switzerland.