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.
Caps with radiating blades beneath
Split Gill
Gilled
A small, tough, hairy white fan growing sideways from dead wood, with gill-like folds split lengthwise down the middle that curl open and shut with the weather.
Spore print · White
Springtime Amanita
Gilled
A spring-fruiting California amanita with a salmon-orange to peach cap, a strongly grooved margin, buff-tinted gills, and a thick sac-like volva. The ring is usually absent.
Spore print · White
Stinking Dapperling
Gilled
A small white dapperling whose cap carries a smooth reddish-brown central disc surrounded by rings of small brown scales. It grows in troops on lawns, verges and woodland margins and has a sharp rubbery odour.
Spore print · White
Sulphur Tuft
Gilled
A very common stump fungus forming crowded tufts of small sulphur-yellow caps with rusty centres, sulphur-yellow gills that age greenish then purple-brown, and a purple-brown spore print.
Spore print · Purple-brown
Tawny Grisette
Gilled
A slim, ringless, foxy orange-brown Amanita of acid woodland and heath, with free white gills and a tall white sac at the base stained rusty brown.
Spore print · White
The Blusher
Gilled
A robust woodland Amanita whose flesh slowly stains wine-pink to reddish-brown wherever it is cut, bruised or nibbled by insects, with a grooved ring and dirty pinkish-grey veil warts.
Spore print · White
The Prince
Gilled
One of the largest field mushrooms, with a squarish young cap patterned in fine golden-brown fibrous scales, a big pendulous ring and flesh that yellows slowly where handled. It smells strongly of almonds.
Spore print · Dark brown
The Sickener
Gilled
A vivid scarlet brittlegill of damp conifer woodland and sphagnum, with a shiny cap whose skin peels almost to the centre, pure white gills, a white chalky stem and a white spore print.
Spore print · White
Velvet Shank
Gilled
A tufted orange-capped mushroom with a slimy cap and a distinctive dark, velvety stem base, fruiting on hardwood stumps in the coldest months. The contrast between the bright cap and near-black stem is the giveaway.
Spore print · White
Verdigris Agaric
Gilled
A striking woodland roundhead with a slimy verdigris blue-green cap flecked with white veil scales at the margin, a scaly ringed stem and gills that mature to purple-brown.
Spore print · Purple-brown
Violet Webcap
Gilled
A large, sombre, dark violet woodland mushroom with a dry felty cap, violet gills that rust over with maturity, and a cobwebby veil linking cap margin to stem.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Weeping Widow
Gilled
A shaggy tawny-brown grassland mushroom whose blackening gills bead with dark droplets in humid weather. The hairy cap, veil-fringed margin and near-black spore print make it distinctive.
Spore print · Very dark brown to blackish
Western Destroying Angel
Gilled
An all-white springtime Amanita of western oak woodland, with free white gills, a thin skirt-like ring and a sac-like membranous volva at the buried stem base.
Spore print · White
Wine Cap
Gilled
A large mulch-bed mushroom with a wine-red cap fading to tan, purple-grey gills, and an unmistakable thick white ring whose upper surface splits into radiating cogwheel spokes.
Spore print · Dark purple-brown to purple-black
Winter Chanterelle
Gilled
A slender brown funnel-shaped chanterelle with shallow grey-lilac forking ridges and a hollow yellow stem, fruiting in mossy conifer woodland late in the season.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Wood Blewit
Gilled
A thick-set, late-season woodland agaric coloured violet throughout when young, with a smooth greasy cap, sinuate lilac gills, a fibrous ringless stem and a pale pink spore print.
Spore print · Pale pink
Yellow Patches
Gilled
A small to medium eastern North American amanita with a glossy orange-yellow cap sprinkled with bright chrome-yellow flakes of universal veil. The same yellow material dusts the ring and the swollen stem base.
Spore print · White
Yellow Stainer
Gilled
A white Agaricus that flushes instant bright chrome-yellow when the cap margin is rubbed or the stem base is cut, and carries a distinctive ink-like odour. Young caps often have a flat-topped, squared-off profile.
Spore print · Dark chocolate-brown
Yellow-staining Mushroom
Gilled
A white Agaricus of hedges and parks whose flesh flushes instant chrome-yellow when rubbed, most vividly in a cut stem base, and which carries a sharp phenolic odour. The young cap is characteristically squared off.
Spore print · Dark brown
Yellow-veiled Amanita
Gilled
A western North American amanita with a dark brown to olive cap sprinkled with vivid golden warts, a yellow-edged ring, and yellow veil belts on the bulbous base.
Spore print · White
Agaricus bohusii
Gilled
An unusual Agaricus that fruits in dense caespitose clusters, its caps streaked with dark brown fibrous scales and its stipes crowded and often bent. Favours nitrogen-rich soil under broadleaf trees.
Spore print · Dark brown
Agaricus crocodilinus
Gilled
A very large white meadow Agaricus whose dry cap cracks into flat plates like crocodile skin. It fruits in coastal grassland and pasture, chiefly in western North America.
Spore print · Dark brown
Alder Scalycap
Gilled
A tufted lemon-yellow Pholiota of wet woodland that grows on alder and birch stumps, with a smooth slightly sticky cap, sweetish scent and clay-brown spore print.
Spore print · Clay-brown to rust-brown
Almond Mushroom
Gilled
A warm-climate Agaricus of compost and enriched garden soil, recognised by its brown-fibrillose cap, large pendulous ring and strong almond-like aroma.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
American Parasol
Gilled
A stout parasol with concentric reddish-brown scales over a white cap and a spindle-shaped stem, whose flesh and surfaces stain wine-red to reddish-brown wherever they are handled. It fruits in clusters on wood chips, sawdust and old stumps rather than in undisturbed forest soil.
Spore print · White
Amethyst Chanterelle
Gilled
A European chanterelle whose egg-yellow cap is dusted with small appressed amethyst to lilac scales. Below, it has the family's usual blunt yellow forking ridges running down a tapering stalk.
Spore print · Pale cream to yellowish
Angel Wings
Gilled
A thin, pure white, stalkless fan that grows in crowded troops on decaying conifer wood, with narrow crowded gills radiating from a pinched point of attachment.
Spore print · White
Angel's Bonnet
Gilled
A late-fruiting bonnet with an olive-grey to yellowish cap and a slender stem, growing in tufts on mossy hardwood. Fresh material carries a distinctive iodine-like smell.
Spore print · White
Appalachian Chanterelle
Gilled
A slender, small chanterelle with a brownish to olive-brown cap contrasting against pale yellow false gills. It is characteristic of hardwood slopes in and around the Appalachian Mountains.
Spore print · Pale yellow to cream
Aspen Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
A North American oyster mushroom restricted to dead aspen and cottonwood, with pale fleshy caps in overlapping shelves and a buff-tinted rather than lilac spore print.
Spore print · White to pale buff
Bear Lentinus
Gilled
A stalkless, fan-shaped bracket with a dark velvety-hairy base and pale, sharply saw-toothed gills radiating from the point of attachment to dead hardwood.
Spore print · White
Beautiful Bonnet
Gilled
A tufted wood bonnet with a pale ochre-brown cap and a striking bright yellow stipe, most often found on beech. The contrast between pale cap and vivid stem base gives it its name.
Spore print · White
Beech Mushroom
Gilled
A tightly clustered wood mushroom with small tan caps marked by pale mottled spots and firm white stipes fused at a common base, fruiting on beech and other hardwood trunks in autumn.
Spore print · White
Bitter Oyster
Gilled
A small, tough, tan kidney-shaped bracket with a suede-textured cap and a stubby lateral stalk, growing in dense overlapping rows on hardwood; North American populations glow faintly green in the dark.
Spore print · White
Black Poplar Mushroom
Gilled
A clustered brown-spored wood mushroom with a smooth two-toned cap that cracks in dry weather, a pale fibrous stipe and a persistent membranous ring.
Spore print · Tobacco brown
Blackedge Bonnet
Gilled
A sturdy lilac-brown bonnet whose pale violaceous gills carry sharply contrasting dark purple-black edges. It fruits in troops through beech and other broadleaf litter and smells strongly of radish.
Spore print · White
Bleeding Bonnet
Gilled
A minute reddish bonnet that releases dark blood-red juice from its thread-like stem and carries matching dark red edges along its gills. It fruits in mossy litter in both conifer and broadleaf woodland.
Spore print · White
Bleeding Fairy Helmet
Gilled
A delicate reddish-brown bonnet that exudes dark blood-red latex from its hollow stipe when broken, growing in tight clusters on rotting hardwood.
Spore print · White
Bloodred Webcap
Gilled
A small webcap coloured deep blood-red throughout, cap, gills and stipe alike, fruiting among mosses in damp spruce and pine forest.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Blushing Wood Mushroom
Gilled
A brown-scaled woodland Agaricus of conifer litter whose white flesh blushes vivid red within moments of being cut.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Bonfire Scalycap
Gilled
A small sticky-capped scalycap restricted to burnt ground and charcoal, with a tawny centre, pale yellow margin and a brown spore print.
Spore print · Brown
Branched Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
A cream to ochre oyster mushroom with deeply funnel-shaped caps growing in branched bouquets, identified by gills that run down the stem and fuse into a raised network.
Spore print · White to pale lilac
Brown Field Mushroom
Gilled
A squat, firm coastal Agaricus with a brown-scaled cap and an exceptionally thick, short stipe. It favours sandy grassland and dune systems near the sea.
Spore print · Dark brown
Brown Shaggy Parasol
Gilled
A robust parasol of gardens and compost-enriched ground, with coarse brown cap scales, reddening flesh, a thick double ring and an abruptly rimmed bulb at the stem base.
Spore print · White
Bruising Webcap
Gilled
A robust webcap with a slimy streaky olive-brown cap whose violet gills and flesh flush deep purple wherever they are rubbed or cut.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Bulbous Honey Fungus
Gilled
A honey fungus of deciduous woodland recognised by its distinctly swollen club-shaped stipe base, fine yellowish cap scales and fragile cobwebby yellow-fringed ring.
Spore print · White
Butter Cap
Gilled
A late-season litter mushroom recognised by its greasy-feeling cap, crowded white gills, distinctly club-shaped stem base and pale pinkish spore print.
Spore print · Pale pinkish cream
California Agaricus
Gilled
A common lawn and garden Agaricus of the Pacific coast, with a pale silky cap, a flaring patch-bearing ring and pale greyish rather than bright pink young gills.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown