A vivid red waxgill with a scarlet to deep red cap fading to orange-yellow, blood-red young gills, and a deep red context in both pileus and stipe cortex. The dry, glabrous to minutely squamulose cap and distant thick lamellae make it distinctive among New Zealand red Hygrocybe.

Pileus: 10-35 mm, hemispherical becoming plano-convex to irregularly expanded; scarlet to deep red, fading to orange-yellow; glabrous or minutely fibrillose-squamulose in age; dry; margin occasionally striate.
Lamellae: broadly adnate to decurrent; blood red when young, turning pale red or cream; rather thick, distant; edge concolorous.
Stipe: 25-70 x 2-5(-6) mm, cylindric, equal or sometimes attenuated below; concolorous with pileus, paler toward base; longitudinally fibrillose, silky, dry; hollow; single or clustered.
Context: deep red, especially in cortex of pileus and stipe.
Odour/tast: not distinctive.