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
Spring Brittlestem
Gilled
An early-season brittlestem with a smooth date-brown cap that dries to greyish buff and a slender, fragile white stem. It appears in groups on rich soil under broadleaved trees.
Spore print · Dark brown
Spring Fieldcap
Gilled
An early-season fieldcap of woodchip and grassy path edges, with a pale tan cap, a ring on the stipe, white mycelial cords at the base and a dark brown spore print.
Spore print · Dark snuff-brown
St. George's Mushroom
Gilled
A thick, cream-coloured spring grassland mushroom with crowded white gills, a stout ringless stipe and a strong mealy odour. It often grows in arcs and rings along hedge banks and downland turf.
Spore print · White
Star Pinkgill
Gilled
A slender grassland pinkgill named for its distinctive cross-shaped spores, with a conical silky-streaked brown cap and pink gills.
Spore print · Pink
Star-spored Fibrecap
Gilled
A chestnut-brown fibrecap with a sharply umbonate, deeply split cap and a stipe ending in an abruptly rimmed bulb. Named for its remarkable star-shaped spores.
Spore print · Dull brown
Stinking Brittlegill
Gilled
A big, stout ochre-brown brittlegill with a slimy cap, a strongly grooved and warty margin and a heavy rancid oily smell, its stout stipe becoming chambered and hollow.
Spore print · Pale cream
Straw Mushroom
Gilled
A tropical decomposer that emerges as a dark egg wrapped in a membrane, then expands to a grey-brown cap on a ringless stipe seated in a sac-like volva. Its gills turn pink and the spore print is salmon.
Spore print · Salmon pink
Stubble Rosegill
Gilled
A large greasy-capped mushroom of disturbed rich ground, with free gills that turn deep salmon pink and a stipe seated in a conspicuous white sac-like volva but with no ring at all.
Spore print · Salmon pink
Surprise Webcap
Gilled
A drab olive-brown webcap of sandy conifer ground that hides vivid blood-red gills beneath an unremarkable cap, hence the name.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Sweetbread Mushroom
Gilled
A white, matt, suede-textured woodland mushroom with decurrent gills that turn pink and a strongly farinaceous odour. The pink spore print and running gills are its defining combination.
Spore print · Pink
Tawny Funnel
Gilled
A rusty orange-brown funnel that fruits in dense crowded troops and rings in woodland litter, with very crowded decurrent gills that age to the cap colour.
Spore print · Pale cream
Termite Mushroom
Gilled
A giant tropical agaric with a sharply umbonate pale cap and a long tapering root that runs down to the fungus comb of a termite colony.
Spore print · Pinkish cream
The Deceiver
Gilled
A hugely variable pinkish-tan woodland mushroom named for its shifting appearance, identified by thick, widely spaced flesh-pink gills and a fibrous twisted stem.
Spore print · White
Tiger Sawgill
Gilled
A tough little funnel-shaped agaric with a cream cap streaked with dark tiger-like scales, deeply decurrent saw-edged gills and a scaly stem, growing on waterlogged willow and poplar.
Spore print · White
Torn Fibrecap
Gilled
A small, drab, grey-brown fibrecap whose cap surface breaks up into ragged torn fibrils and scales. A pioneer of sandy tracks, heathland and young conifer plantations.
Spore print · Dull brown
Train Wrecker
Gilled
A tough, cream-coloured agaric patterned with flat brown scales, whose deeply decurrent gills have coarsely sawn edges; it is famous for rotting railway sleepers and other conifer timber.
Spore print · White
Turf Mottlegill
Gilled
A small greyish mottlegill of dunged pasture and manured turf, with a hemispherical hygrophanous cap, mottled blackening gills and a slender fragile stipe.
Spore print · Black
Ugly Milkcap
Gilled
A dark olive-brown to almost black birch milkcap with a sticky cap, downy inrolled margin and cream gills that stain brown where the white latex dries.
Spore print · Cream
Variable Oysterling
Gilled
A tiny stalkless white fungus that grows in numbers on the underside of dead twigs and stems, its felted fan-shaped cap paired with a distinctive pale pinkish-brown spore print.
Spore print · Pale pinkish-brown
Variable Webcap
Gilled
A heavy-bodied webcap with a slightly greasy grey-brown cap, violet-tinted young gills and a swollen club-shaped stem base. It forms mycorrhizal partnerships with spruce and pine in northern and montane woodland.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Veiled Oyster
Gilled
A stout, thick-fleshed white oyster with a felty-scaly cap surface and a partial veil that leaves a fringed cap margin or a fleeting ring on the off-centre stipe. It fruits singly or in small groups from wounds on standing hardwoods.
Spore print · White
Velvet Brittlegill
Gilled
A firm brittlegill with a dry velvety cap in olive-yellow or violet tones and a white stipe washed with lilac or rose. Both cap and stipe carry a fine powdery bloom.
Spore print · Pale cream
Velvet Milkcap
Gilled
A striking dark chocolate-brown milkcap with a dry velvety, wrinkled cap and startlingly white gills, whose white latex stains the flesh salmon-pink. It grows with spruce and fir in mossy northern and montane conifer forest.
Spore print · Pale yellow to ochre
Velvet Rollrim
Gilled
A robust brown mushroom of conifer stumps with a suede-textured inrolled cap, decurrent forking gills that peel away from the flesh, and a thick stem clad in dark brown-black velvet.
Spore print · Yellowish-brown
Velvet Shield
Gilled
A handsome dark shield mushroom with a network of raised brown veins and scales across the cap and gills edged in a distinct dark brown fringe. It grows on decaying hardwood.
Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink
Vermilion Waxcap
Gilled
A very small scarlet waxcap whose dry cap is minutely scurfy under a lens, with orange-red gills that run slightly down a smooth red stem.
Spore print · White
Viscid Violet Cort
Gilled
A slimy violet-capped webcap of eastern North American oak woods that develops pale yellowish spots and streaks as it ages. The viscid stem and rusty spore print confirm the genus.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Western Jack-O'-Lantern
Gilled
A clustered orange mushroom flushed with distinctive olive-green tones, with long-decurrent orange gills that glow faintly green in darkness, fruiting from oak stumps and roots on the Pacific coast.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
White Button Mushroom
Gilled
The familiar rounded white Agaricus with free gills that shift from pale pink to dark brown and a soft ring on the stipe. Wild forms grow on rich, composted or manured ground rather than on wood.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
White Chanterelle
Gilled
A stout, chalk-white chanterelle of western North American conifer forests, with blunt decurrent ridges instead of gills and flesh that stains rusty orange wherever it is touched.
Spore print · White
White Dapperling
Gilled
A clean white grassland mushroom with a smooth unscaled cap, free gills that flush pale pink with age, a movable ring and a slightly swollen base without any sac.
Spore print · White to faintly pinkish
White Dunce Cap
Gilled
An extremely fragile white to cream conical mushroom of lawns that appears overnight and often collapses by midday, with rusty ochre spores.
Spore print · Rusty ochre-brown
White Fibrecap
Gilled
A small, silky, ivory-white fibrecap with a sharp central point and gills that age from white to dull clay-brown. Common along shaded woodland paths from midsummer onwards.
Spore print · Snuff-brown
Willow Shield
Gilled
A slender grey to greenish-grey shield mushroom of damp riverside woods, with free gills that turn salmon-pink, a pale stem often bluing at the base, and a pink spore print.
Spore print · Pink
Wood Mushroom
Gilled
A graceful white woodland Agaricus with silky cap, free pink-then-brown gills, a large pendulous ring and a marked aniseed aroma.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Wood Woollyfoot
Gilled
A pliant, ochre-brown litter mushroom named for the dense woolly mat of pale hairs clothing the base of its stem and matting the surrounding leaves.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Woolly Milkcap
Gilled
A pink, concentrically banded birch milkcap with a heavily inrolled, shaggily woolly cap margin and copious white latex that does not change colour.
Spore print · Cream
Wrinkled Fieldcap
Gilled
A tall pale fieldcap of fresh woodchip, recognised by its distinctly wrinkled and veined cap surface and the large flaring ring hanging from a white stipe.
Spore print · Dark brown
Wrinkled Peach
Gilled
An unmistakable rubbery-fleshed mushroom whose apricot to salmon cap is embossed with a raised network of pale ridges, growing on dead elm and other decaying hardwood.
Spore print · Pink
Yellow Fieldcap
Gilled
An extremely fragile, short-lived agaric whose slimy egg-yolk yellow cap expands, fades to grey and collapses within a day, leaving a rusty ochre spore print.
Spore print · Rusty ochre-brown
Yellow Swamp Brittlegill
Gilled
A striking pure chrome-yellow brittlegill of boggy birch woods, identified by its bright unfaded cap and by flesh that turns grey and eventually black where cut or bruised.
Spore print · Pale ochre
Yellow Webcap
Gilled
A slimy-capped webcap in warm ochre-yellow, distinguished by pale bluish-violet young gills and a bluish stem apex above a glutinous, banded stem. Common with birch on damp acid soils.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Yellow-gilled Gymnopilus
Gilled
A colourful rustgill with a purplish-red, fibrillose-scaly cap and brilliant yellow gills that mature to rust, commonly clustered on wood chip beds.
Spore print · Rusty orange-brown
Yellowdrop Milkcap
Gilled
A pale pinkish-buff oak associate whose white latex turns brilliant sulphur yellow within seconds of exposure. Faint concentric cap zoning and a whitish hollow stipe complete the picture.
Spore print · Pale cream
Yellowfoot
Gilled
A slender late-season funnel fungus with a brown perforated cap, greyish blunt ridges and a hollow, bright yellow stalk. It carpets mossy conifer floors and well-rotted wood in large troops.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Yellowfoot Chanterelle
Gilled
A slender late-season funnel with a brown wavy cap, widely spaced grey-yellow forking ridges beneath, and a hollow yellow stipe. It fruits in large troops through moss and conifer litter.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Yellowfoot Dapperling
Gilled
A slim woodland dapperling with a shaggy ochre-brown scaly cap and a stem sheathed below the ring in loose yellow woolly veil, brightest toward the base. Its large spindle-shaped spores give the species its name.
Spore print · White
Yellowing Brittlegill
Gilled
A small, fragile brittlegill whose entire fruiting body — cap, gills, stipe and flesh — discolours a deep honey-yellow with age or handling. It is common in damp mossy conifer woodland.
Spore print · Pale cream