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
California Golden Chanterelle
Gilled
The largest chanterelle known, producing massive golden-orange fruit bodies under California's coast live oaks. Its sheer bulk, thick white flesh and blunt forking ridges make it unmistakable in its range.
Spore print · Pale yellow to cream
Cat Dapperling
Gilled
A small conifer-woodland dapperling with a starkly two-toned cap: near-black scales scattered over a white ground around a dark disc, above a slender stem with a distinct dark-edged ring.
Spore print · White
Charcoal Scalycap
Gilled
A small sticky-capped Pholiota restricted to burnt ground, appearing on old bonfire and campfire sites with a tawny cap, scaly stipe and clay-brown spore print.
Spore print · Clay-brown
Chestnut Dapperling
Gilled
A small woodland dapperling whose pale cap is broken into fine, dark chestnut-brown granular scales arranged in rough concentric rings, on a slender stem sheathed with the same rusty scaling below a vanishing ring.
Spore print · White
Cinnabar Chanterelle
Gilled
A diminutive chanterelle in vivid cinnabar red to pinkish-orange, with blunt forking ridges instead of true gills. It appears in scattered troops on the soil of eastern North American oak woods.
Spore print · Pinkish-cream to pale pink
Cinnamon Webcap
Gilled
A small slender webcap with a silky cinnamon-brown cap, crowded saffron to golden-yellow gills and a yellow-olive stipe, fruiting in mossy conifer woodland.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Clustered Bonnet
Gilled
A small bell-capped bonnet that grows in dense tufts on oak and sweet chestnut stumps, recognised by the finely toothed, scalloped cap edge and a slender stem that turns golden then rusty orange-brown below.
Spore print · White
Clustered Toughshank
Gilled
Crowded tufts of slim pale mushrooms whose long stems, densely coated in fine white hairs, fuse together at a common base buried in the leaf litter.
Spore print · White
Common Bonnet
Gilled
A tough-stemmed grey-brown bonnet with a radially grooved bell-shaped cap and pink-tinged, cross-veined gills, fruiting in tufts on hardwood stumps for most of the year.
Spore print · White
Common Fieldcap
Gilled
A small ringless fieldcap of short turf, with a smooth hemispherical ochre-tan cap, slender pale stipe and dark brown gills and spore print.
Spore print · Dark brown
Common Rustgill
Gilled
An abundant orange-tawny wood-rotter of conifer plantations, identified by its smooth dry cap, yellow gills that become freckled with rust spots, and rusty spore print.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Common Stump Brittlestem
Gilled
A densely tufted stump mushroom with a date-brown cap that dries pale from the centre outward, brittle hollow white stems, and dark purple-brown spores.
Spore print · Dark purple-brown
Conical Brittlestem
Gilled
A strikingly tall, thin-stemmed mushroom with a narrow conical cap that dries from dark date-brown to pale tan, its surface set with fine erect bristles visible under a lens.
Spore print · Blackish brown
Conifer Tuft
Gilled
A tightly clustered woodland fungus of conifer stumps, recognised by its tan-ochre cap and gills that shift from whitish to a distinctive smoky grey.
Spore print · Purple-brown
Conifercone Cap
Gilled
A small tan-buff mushroom that fruits directly from fallen spruce and pine cones, recognised by extremely crowded gills and a hairy, cord-like rooting stem base.
Spore print · White
Contrary Webcap
Gilled
A stout conifer webcap whose warm orange-tawny cap contrasts sharply with brilliant violet-blue young gills and a thick white club-shaped stem. Rusty brown spores overtake the blue with age.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Coprinellus radians
Gilled
A small tawny inkcap recognised less by the mushroom than by the conspicuous rusty-orange felted mat of mycelium, called an ozonium, that spreads across the wood beneath it.
Spore print · Blackish brown
Cortinarius gentilis
Gilled
A small, slender, tawny-orange webcap of mossy conifer forest, with thick widely spaced ochre gills and yellowish veil bands on a slim stem. Its dry silky cap carries a sharp umbo.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Cortinarius orellanus
Gilled
A medium-sized tawny webcap of oak and beech woodland with a dry, finely scaly convex cap, thick distant cinnamon gills and a tapering yellow-brown stipe without veil belts.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Cortinarius rubellus
Gilled
A slender foxy-orange webcap of mossy conifer forest, recognised by its sharply umbonate fibrillose cap, thick widely spaced rusty gills and pale yellow bands on the stipe.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Craterellus lutescens
Gilled
A slender funnel-shaped fungus with a scurfy brown cap, a bright orange-yellow hollow stalk and an almost smooth orange underside rather than distinct ridges.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Crimped Gill
Gilled
A tiny, tough bracket that forms tiered rows of tawny-zoned fans on fallen hardwood branches, its underside covered in crimped, forking white folds rather than true gills.
Spore print · White
Dappled Webcap
Gilled
A striking webcap whose pale cream cap is broken into flat coppery-red scales, with white flesh that yellows and then reddens where cut.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Dark Honey Fungus
Gilled
A robust clustered honey fungus of conifer forests with a dark-scaly reddish-brown cap and a thick white ring edged with brown scales, spreading through the soil by black shoestring rhizomorphs.
Spore print · White
Destructive Pholiota
Gilled
A large, heavy-bodied scalycap of dead poplar wood, covered in soft white cottony veil patches with a stout woolly stipe and rusty brown spores.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Dripping Bonnet
Gilled
A minute pale bonnet whose thin stem is sheathed in a thick, glassy layer of slime far wider than the stalk itself. It fruits on twigs, bramble stems and fallen plant debris.
Spore print · White
Elm Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
A firm, pale, smooth-capped mushroom that grows from wounds on standing elms and maples, distinguished from true oysters by its stout central-to-eccentric stipe and gills that are notched rather than long-decurrent.
Spore print · White
Felt-ringed Agaricus
Gilled
A stout western North American Agaricus recognised by its thick felty ring with cottony patches, pinkish-brown fibrillose cap and yellow-staining bulbous base.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Fiery Milkcap
Gilled
A grey-buff milkcap with faint watery zoning and unusually well-spaced ochre-yellow gills, found almost exclusively under hazel. Its white latex dries greyish and its gill spacing sets it apart from other grey milkcaps.
Spore print · Pale cream to pale yellow
Firerug Inkcap
Gilled
An inkcap identified by the rusty-orange felted mycelial mat, the ozonium, that carpets the wood it grows from. The tawny cap is grooved and dusted with pale granular veil.
Spore print · Black
Flame Mycena
Gilled
A brilliant scarlet to flame-orange bonnet of western North American conifer duff, with orange gills edged in red and a tuft of orange fibrils at the stem base.
Spore print · White
Flaming Scalycap
Gilled
A brilliant golden-yellow scalycap covered in pointed sulphur-yellow scales on both cap and stipe, fruiting on mossy conifer stumps and logs.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Flat Oysterling
Gilled
A small, white to buff, flattened fan-shaped bracket on rotting hardwood, whose brown spore print and finely lined, radiating gills separate it from all the white-spored oyster relatives.
Spore print · Pale brown
Flat-topped Agaricus
Gilled
A North American woodland Agaricus with a characteristically flat-topped, grey-scaled cap, a bulbous stipe base that flushes chrome-yellow and a sharp inky odour.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Flowerpot Parasol
Gilled
A slender, brilliant sulphur-yellow mushroom that appears overnight in the pots of houseplants and in greenhouse beds, with a powdery pleated cap and a fragile ringed stem. It collapses within a day, often before anyone notices it opened.
Spore print · White
Fragile Dapperling
Gilled
Perhaps the most insubstantial gilled mushroom in the field guide: a wafer-thin, deeply pleated yellowish-green cap stretched over its gills like a parasol skin, on a stem no thicker than a wire. It collapses to a smear within hours of opening.
Spore print · White
Fragrant Chanterelle
Gilled
A vivid orange trumpet-shaped fungus that grows in dense fused clusters from a common base, with a nearly smooth underside and a powerful sweet aroma.
Spore print · Pale yellow to cream
Frayed Parasol
Gilled
A medium-sized pale parasol of open pasture whose cap cuticle splits and peels back at the edge, leaving a characteristically frayed, ragged margin over white flesh. Its stem is plain whitish with no snakeskin pattern.
Spore print · White
Freckled Dapperling
Gilled
A stout dapperling of nettle beds and rich ground, its dry ochre-brown cap bristling with erect pyramidal spines that rub off at a touch and its gills forking near the stem.
Spore print · White
Frosty Fibrecap
Gilled
A rich chestnut-brown fibrecap whose umbo carries whitish felted veil remnants like a dusting of frost. Frequent on beech-wood paths and calcareous banks.
Spore print · Snuff-brown
Frosty Webcap
Gilled
A small, slender birch webcap whose dark greyish-brown cap is dusted with fine white fibrils like hoar frost. The slim stem carries whitish veil girdles above a hygrophanous, umbonate cap.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Funeral Bell
Gilled
A small, strongly hygrophanous honey-brown mushroom of rotting wood, identified by rusty brown spores, a thin membranous ring dusted rust by falling spores, and clustered growth on logs.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Fuzzy Foot
Gilled
A tiny orange-brown bell-shaped mushroom that erupts in enormous swarms across mossy conifer logs, recognised by decurrent veined gills and a tuft of tawny fuzz at the stipe base.
Spore print · White
Galerina marginata
Gilled
A small, ringed, tawny-brown wood-rotting agaric with a strongly hygrophanous cap and a rusty spore print, fruiting in troops on decaying logs and mossy stumps.
Spore print · Rust-brown
Garlic Parachute
Gilled
A slender beech-litter mushroom with a pale hygrophanous cap on a disproportionately long, velvety blackish rooting stem, and an unmistakable strong garlic smell.
Spore print · White
Gassy Webcap
Gilled
A stout lilac webcap of northern conifer forest with dry silky cap, ochre-saffron marbled flesh and a strong penetrating gas-like smell.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Ghost Fungus
Gilled
A large Australian bracket-forming mushroom with a cream cap mottled in grey, blue and purple tones, decurrent white gills and a short eccentric stipe; its gills emit a striking greenish glow at night.
Spore print · White to cream
Giant Cypress Agaricus
Gilled
A giant west-coast Agaricus of coastal cypress and pine groves, with a heavy brown-scaled cap that can reach 30 cm and a thick, patchy ring. Fruits in the winter rains.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown