Fungi encyclopedia
A reference for the fungi you actually find
Each entry describes one species the way you meet it in the field — the cap and its surface, what sits underneath, the stipe and its base, the spore print colour, the substrate it fruits from, and the species most often confused with it.
Ascomycetes shaped like cups or saucers
Darwin's Fungus
Cups & Discs
A globe-shaped orange ascomycete that erupts in clusters from woody galls on southern beech trees in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, its surface dimpled with honeycomb-like cups.
Spore print · White
Devil's Cigar
Cups & Discs
A rare, cigar-shaped fungus that splits lengthwise into four to seven leathery rays, exposing a pale spore-bearing interior. It is known only from a few counties in Texas and from parts of Japan.
Spore print · White
Green Elfcup
Cups & Discs
A tiny turquoise cup fungus whose mycelium stains rotting hardwood a vivid blue-green. The stain is visible all year, while the small stalked saucers appear mainly in damp autumn weather.
Spore print · White
Orange Peel Fungus
Cups & Discs
Brilliant orange, thin and brittle cups that flatten, split and contort until they look exactly like scattered pieces of orange peel. It fruits in troops on bare compacted soil, track sides and gravelly ground.
Spore print · White
Scarlet Elf Cup
Cups & Discs
A vivid scarlet cup 1-5 cm across, lined with intense red on the inside and whitish and felty on the outside, growing on damp mossy hardwood sticks. It is one of the earliest and most colourful fungi of the year.
Spore print · White
Ash Dieback
Cups & Discs
A minute white cup fungus that fruits in summer on the blackened leaf stalks of ash lying in the litter. Its asexual stage produces diamond-shaped bark lesions and crown dieback on living ash trees.
Spore print · White
Bay Cup
Cups & Discs
A dark bay-brown cup with an olive-flushed interior that grows on bare damp soil along woodland banks and path edges. Its scurfy paler exterior and irregular splitting margin are useful field characters.
Spore print · White
Black Bulgar
Cups & Discs
Rubbery black top-shaped buttons crowding the bark of freshly fallen oak, with a shiny black fertile disc that leaves dark spore smudges on the fingers.
Spore print · Blackish brown
Blistered Cup
Cups & Discs
A stout pale ochre cup that grows in crowded tiers on compost, straw and manured ground, its inner surface swollen into distinctive bubble-like blisters. The margin stays strongly inrolled and the outside is whitish and mealy.
Spore print · White
Cedar Cup
Cups & Discs
A half-buried brown cup that erupts through soil beneath cedar trees in spring, splitting its rim into star-like rays around a white inner surface.
Spore print · Whitish
Cellar Cup
Cups & Discs
A pale ochre to buff cup fungus with thick, waxy-looking flesh, best known for appearing on damp mortar, plaster and mineral debris in cellars, greenhouses and around foundations.
Spore print · White
Charcoal Loving Elf Cup
Cups & Discs
A small orange-tan stalked cup with a whitish scalloped rim that appears in troops on burnt ground the spring after a fire.
Spore print · Whitish
Common Brown Cup
Cups & Discs
A dark olive- to chocolate-brown cup fungus of woodland soil and leaf litter, appearing in spring with a paler, finely scurfy outer surface.
Spore print · White
Crimson Cup
Cups & Discs
A brilliant scarlet cup with a whitish downy exterior, fruiting on damp buried hardwood sticks in late winter and early spring.
Spore print · White
Devil's Urn
Cups & Discs
A dark leathery goblet-shaped cup that erupts in early spring from buried oak sticks, opening from a closed urn to a ragged-mouthed vase.
Spore print · Whitish
Domicile Cup Fungus
Cups & Discs
A pale whitish to buff cup fungus famous for fruiting indoors on damp plaster, concrete, sand and even carpet, often growing in irregular, contorted shapes.
Spore print · White
Ebony Cup
Cups & Discs
Small jet-black rubbery cups that appear in spring among moss and conifer needle litter, their outer surface felted with fine dark hairs.
Spore print · White
Elastic Saddle
Cups & Discs
A slim, graceful saddle fungus with a buff to greyish two-lobed head balanced on a thin, perfectly smooth stalk. The absence of ribs or flutes on the stem is its most useful distinguishing feature.
Spore print · White
Eyelash Cup
Cups & Discs
A miniature orange-red disc fungus rimmed with stiff black hairs like eyelashes, growing in troops on wet rotting wood and damp ground.
Spore print · Whitish
Felt Saddle
Cups & Discs
A grey, shallow cup raised on an unusually long slender stalk, with fine felt covering both the outer surface and the stem. Its unribbed, downy stalk separates it at a glance from the fluted saddles.
Spore print · White
Fluted Black Elfin Saddle
Cups & Discs
A striking grey to charcoal ascomycete with a crumpled saddle-shaped head raised on a deeply fluted, chambered stalk. Its dark colour makes it hard to spot against woodland litter despite its size.
Spore print · White
Glazed Cup
Cups & Discs
A small deep cup with a glazed white inner surface and a coarse brown bristly exterior, sitting on damp woodland soil and mossy rotting wood.
Spore print · White
Golden Cup
Cups & Discs
A vivid orange spring cup fungus of conifer duff whose margins and bruised areas stain a distinctive blue-green. It is one of the earliest fungi to appear at the edge of retreating snow.
Spore print · White
Green Elf Cup
Cups & Discs
A minute turquoise cup fungus whose mycelium dyes rotting hardwood a vivid blue-green; the stained wood is far more often seen than the fruiting bodies.
Spore print · White
Hairy Rubber Cup
Cups & Discs
A tough, rubbery goblet with a smooth reddish-brown disc set inside a blackish, densely bristly cup. Its gelatinous-rubbery texture is unlike that of any other brown woodland cup.
Spore print · White
Hare's Ear
Cups & Discs
A tan to fox-brown ear-shaped cup, split down one side and taller than wide, growing from needle litter and moss in coniferous woodland.
Spore print · White
Helvella leucomelaena
Cups & Discs
A deep, thick-walled cup with a near-black interior and a pale exterior, sitting on a short white ribbed base that is often half-buried in sandy soil. It is a spring associate of pines.
Spore print · White
Lemon Disco
Cups & Discs
Swarms of minute lemon-yellow discs scattered in their hundreds across damp barkless hardwood, one of the brightest sights on the autumn woodland floor.
Spore print · White
Lemon Peel Fungus
Cups & Discs
An ear-shaped yellow cup split down one side, with an apricot-pink flush on the inner surface, growing in leaf litter under broadleaved trees.
Spore print · White
Moose Antlers
Cups & Discs
Clusters of tall, ear- or antler-shaped rubbery blades rising from a hard underground mass in rich eastern North American hardwood forest.
Spore print · Brownish
Palamino Cup
Cups & Discs
A broad, shallow tan cup fungus with a wavy, often split and outward-curling margin, appearing on rotting hardwood, wood chips and sawdust.
Spore print · White
Pig's Ears
Cups & Discs
A large reddish-brown ascomycete that begins as a deep cup and flattens into a wrinkled, ear-like saucer on decaying conifer wood. Its short ribbed stub of a stalk and pale, scurfy underside separate it from the true cup fungi.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Pink Crown
Cups & Discs
A large hollow ball that develops underground then bursts through the soil and splits into a crown of rays, revealing a lilac to violet inner surface.
Spore print · White
Shaggy Scarlet Cup
Cups & Discs
A miniature scarlet goblet clothed in long white shaggy hairs, borne on a slender stalk from buried hardwood twigs. The combination of red interior and white woolly exterior is unmistakable.
Spore print · White
Stalked Scarlet Cup
Cups & Discs
A miniature scarlet cup carried on a distinct slender white stalk, fruiting on decaying hardwood sticks in warm, moist woodland.
Spore print · White
Tan Ear
Cups & Discs
A dull leather-tan ear fungus that opens into a broader, shallower split cup than its relatives, fruiting on humus in deciduous and mixed woodland.
Spore print · White
Toad's Ear
Cups & Discs
The darkest of the ear fungi, forming robust dark brown to almost blackish ear-shaped cups split down one side on woodland soil.
Spore print · White
Toothed Cup
Cups & Discs
A small greyish-buff cup whose margin is cut into neat little teeth, growing on damp bare soil and mossy woodland paths. The toothed rim and pale, dull colouring set it apart from other soil cups.
Spore print · White
Veined Cup
Cups & Discs
A broad, almost stalkless brown disc whose inner surface is scored with prominent radiating veins, found on damp ground in spring. A strong chlorine-like odour and the pale, mealy outer surface make it easy to recognise.
Spore print · White to cream
Vinegar Cup
Cups & Discs
A deep brown goblet-shaped cup whose pale, branching ribs run up from a stout base far onto the outside of the bowl. It fruits in spring on lime-rich soil at woodland edges and along paths.
Spore print · White
Violet Fairy Cup
Cups & Discs
A small violet to purple-lilac cup fungus that colonises burnt ground, old campfire scars and charcoal-rich soil.
Spore print · White
Western Black Elfin Saddle
Cups & Discs
The stout western counterpart of the black elfin saddle, with a large charcoal saddle-shaped head on a thick, deeply chambered pale grey stalk. It fruits in conifer duff along the Pacific coast and inland mountains.
Spore print · White
White Saddle
Cups & Discs
An unmistakable pale ascomycete whose crumpled, saddle-shaped cream head sits on a tall stalk deeply carved into ribs and pockets. It favours the disturbed soil of woodland paths and verges under beech and other broadleaf trees.
Spore print · White
Yellow-juice Cup
Cups & Discs
A dull grey-brown woodland cup whose brittle flesh releases a watery juice that turns bright yellow within moments of being cut.
Spore print · White