A field reference for fungi

What mushroom is that?

Photograph a mushroom and get a name, then read up on it here — cap and gill structure, spore print colour, what it grows on, when it fruits, and the look-alikes that trip people up.

Searches reference entries and recent community finds together.

The Mushroom Identifier app showing an identified Brown Roll-rim with its specimen data

Cap & fruiting body

Shape, surface texture, colour, and how it changes as the fungus matures.

Gills, pores or teeth

How the spore-bearing surface attaches, and the spore print colour it leaves.

Substrate & habitat

The wood, soil or tree partners a species is tied to, and where it occurs.

Season & look-alikes

When it fruits, plus the similar species and the features that separate them.

Browse by fruiting body

Fungi don’t all wear caps

Gills are only one way a fungus releases spores. Sorting a find into the right group — pores, teeth, a jelly, a cup, a closed ball — narrows the field faster than colour ever will.

Gilled

Caps with radiating blades beneath

Boletes

Fleshy caps with a sponge of pores

Polypores

Brackets and shelves on wood

Puffballs

Closed balls that release spore dust

Corals & Clubs

Branched or club-shaped fruit bodies

Jellies

Gelatinous, rubbery, weather-dependent

Cups & Discs

Ascomycetes shaped like cups or saucers

Toothed

Hanging spines instead of gills or pores

Morels & Allies

Pitted or saddle-shaped heads

Stinkhorns

Fast-growing, slime-covered, fly-dispersed

Crusts

Flat, paint-like growths on bark and wood

Other Fungi

Rusts, moulds and unusual forms

From the encyclopedia

Specimen plates

Every photo here is a real, free-licensed image from Wikimedia Commons, credited to the photographer who took it.

See all entries

Admirable Bolete

Spore print: Olive-brown

Agaricus bohusii

Spore print: Dark brown

Agaricus crocodilinus

Spore print: Dark brown

Agarikon

Spore print: White

Alder Bolete

Spore print: Olive to yellowish-brown

Alder Scalycap

Spore print: Clay-brown to rust-brown

Aleurodiscus oakesii

Spore print: White

Almond Mushroom

Spore print: Dark chocolate brown

From the app

Recently identified

Finds people photographed and identified with the app, newest first.

See more finds

Golden Chanterelle

Cantharellus cibarius

Golden Chanterelle

Cantharellus cibarius

Scarletina bolete

Neoboletus luridiformis

Chaga mushroom

Inonotus obliquus

Mulch Fieldcap

Agrocybe dura

Velvet Curtain Crust

Stereum subtomentosum

False Parasol

Chlorophyllum molybdites

Mica Cap

Coprinellus micaceus

Found something you can’t place?

One photo is all it takes. Get the whole fungus in frame — cap and stem together, in focus, where it was growing — and tilt the camera enough to catch some of the underside. That single angle carries most of what separates one species from the next.

Beyond fungi

One photo, ten fields of study

The same camera-first approach, pointed at other things worth naming — rocks, birds, snakes, stamps and more. Each has its own app and its own reference site.