A striking waxgill with a dark red-brown to black-brown cap fading olive-green, brown-orange lamellae, and a yellow to orange stipe with a grey-green base. The combination of dark pileus colours, occasional green tints, and brittle hollow stipe makes it distinctive among New Zealand Hygrocybe.

Pileus: to 45 mm, hemispherical or conical, becoming convex to expanded with a low umbo; dark red‑brown to black‑brown, fading to olive‑green, paler toward margin; viscid, glabrous to minutely fibrillose or radially wrinkled; hygrophanous; striate.
Lamellae: 14-20 (±1-3), adnexed to emarginate‑adnate; ventricose, to 4 mm wide; red‑brown to orange‑brown, paler or yellowish toward edges, occasionally with green tint; edges entire, obtuse.
Stipe: 25-60 x 3-5 (-10) mm, cylindrical, subfusoid to attenuate toward base, rarely equal; yellow to orange with red tint, grey‑green to whitish near base; subviscid when wet, drying glabrous; hollow, brittle; single or caespitose.
Context: dark brown to dark olive beneath pileus cuticle; orange‑yellow in upper stipe; pale green to whitish at stipe base
Odour/tast: not distinctive.