It produces large, colourful fruit bodies with pink patches on the cap, red pores in the hymenial surface and has a robust stem decorated in a dense, red-coloured network pattern.

When longitudinally sliced, its flesh is distinctly bright yellow in the stem and discolours blue only in the cap, an excellent diagnostic feature distinguishing it from similar species.

The fungus is more widespread in warm broad-leaved forests of southern Europe, where it grows in mycorrhizal symbiosis with trees of the family Fagaceae, particularly oak (Quercus) and beech (Fagus).

[13][14][15] The tubes are adnate to emarginate, 0.5 to 1.5 cm (0 to 0.5 in) long and initially yellow, becoming somewhat olivaceous-yellow in very mature fruit bodies and staining blue when cut.

[18][21] It has been reported as locally frequent on the island of Cyprus, where it appears in seasons with early rainfall, growing on serpentine soil under the endemic golden oak (Quercus alnifolia).

In the Colour Atlas of Poisonous Fungi,[26] Bresinsky and Besl claim that the fungus might be edible if thoroughly cooked, but warn against collecting it because of its rarity and possibility of confusion with R. satanas.