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.
Brackets and shelves on wood
Agarikon
Polypores
A large, chalky white, hoof-shaped to column-like perennial bracket found high on old-growth conifers. Its soft, crumbly white interior and cracked outer surface set it apart from every other large conk.
Spore print · White
Artist's Conk
Polypores
A large perennial shelf fungus with a hard, lumpy grey-brown crust and a chalk-white pore surface that instantly bruises dark brown where scratched, the feature behind its name.
Spore print · Brown
Beefsteak Fungus
Polypores
A soft, moist, blood-red tongue-shaped bracket on oak, unique among polypores in having individually separate tubes rather than a fused pore layer.
Spore print · Pale pinkish-brown
Berkeley's Polypore
Polypores
One of the largest fungi of eastern North American forests, forming a massive rosette of thick cream to tan fans with coarse angular pores at the base of oaks.
Spore print · White
Birch Mazegill
Polypores
A tough zoned bracket that looks like a Trametes from above but carries genuine radiating gill plates on its underside instead of pores.
Spore print · White
Birch Polypore
Polypores
A smooth, pale, rubbery bracket that grows almost exclusively on birch, recognised by its rounded kidney shape, thick inrolled margin and fine white pore surface.
Spore print · White
Black-footed Polypore
Polypores
A stalked polypore with a polished chestnut-brown, funnel-shaped cap and minute white pores, recognised instantly by the inky black lower half of its stem.
Spore print · White
Black-staining Polypore
Polypores
A large clustered rosette of grey-brown fans at the foot of hardwood trees whose white pore surface and pale flesh blacken within minutes of being touched.
Spore print · White
Blue Cheese Polypore
Polypores
A small, soft, hairy white bracket that develops distinct blue-grey tints, especially on the pore surface and where bruised, growing in tiers on dead conifer wood.
Spore print · Pale bluish white
Blushing Bracket
Polypores
A flat, radially wrinkled bracket in reddish and tan bands whose pale maze-like underside flushes distinctly pink-red wherever it is touched.
Spore print · White
Blushing Rosette
Polypores
An oddly shaped cream to pinkish-buff polypore forming rosettes or lopsided funnels on the ground above buried roots, staining reddish brown where handled and often weeping red droplets.
Spore print · White
Chaga
Polypores
A black, deeply cracked sterile mass that erupts from living birch trunks like a lump of charcoal, revealing bright rusty-orange interior tissue when broken.
Spore print · Pale brown (from hidden fertile crust)
Chicken of the Woods
Polypores
A vivid orange and sulphur-yellow bracket fungus forming large overlapping tiers on tree trunks, with a bright yellow pore surface and thick, soft flesh that fades to chalky white with age.
Spore print · White
Cinnabar Polypore
Polypores
An unmistakable bracket coloured vivid orange-red throughout, from the smooth upper surface to the fine pore layer beneath.
Spore print · White
Cinnamon Bracket
Polypores
A soft, evenly cinnamon-coloured bracket whose cap, flesh and pores are all the same warm ochre-brown, and which turns brilliant violet where a drop of alkali touches it.
Spore print · White
Conifer Chicken of the Woods
Polypores
Vivid orange overlapping shelves with a sulphur-yellow pore surface, fruiting on conifers in western North America. Substrate is the main character separating it from its hardwood-dwelling relatives.
Spore print · White
Conifer Mazegill
Polypores
A tough rust-brown bracket with a bright orange growing margin and an underside of thick, radiating, ochre-brown gill-like plates.
Spore print · White
Cracked Cap Polypore
Polypores
A hard perennial conk almost restricted to black locust, its blackened upper crust splitting into deep blocky cracks above a rich rusty brown pore surface.
Spore print · Pale yellowish to whitish
Dryad's Saddle
Polypores
A large fan-shaped bracket patterned with concentric brown scales like a pheasant's plumage, set on a short off-centre stem with a black base.
Spore print · White
Dyer's Polypore
Polypores
A large, velvety, concentrically zoned rosette at the foot of conifers, rusty brown at the centre with a vivid yellow growing edge and olive-yellow pores that bruise dark brown.
Spore print · White to pale yellow
Giant Polypore
Polypores
A huge overlapping rosette of tan-brown zoned fans at the foot of beech and other broadleaves, with a fine white pore surface that turns black wherever it is touched.
Spore print · White
Hairy Bracket
Polypores
A tough, greyish-white bracket clothed in coarse, upright bristly hairs and faintly zoned, with a fine white pore surface beneath.
Spore print · White
Hemlock Varnish Shelf
Polypores
A shiny, varnish-coated bracket with a mahogany-red upper surface and creamy white pore layer, fruiting almost exclusively on dead eastern hemlock. Its lacquered finish and conifer substrate make it one of the most recognisable shelf fungi of northern forests.
Spore print · Brown
Hen of the Woods
Polypores
A large rosette of many overlapping grey-brown spoon-shaped caps rising from a branched white stalk at the foot of oaks, with a white pore surface running down the branches.
Spore print · White
Heterobasidion annosum
Polypores
A perennial, irregularly shelving polypore found at the root collar and stump surfaces of conifers, recognised by its rough red-brown to blackish upper crust, sharp white growing margin and cream pore surface.
Spore print · White
Hexagonal-pored Polypore
Polypores
A thin, orange-tinted polypore of fallen hardwood twigs whose underside is a striking honeycomb of very large, radially stretched hexagonal pores.
Spore print · White
Hoof Fungus
Polypores
A hard, grey, hoof-shaped perennial bracket banded with concentric ridges, growing high on birch and beech trunks and adding a new pore layer each year.
Spore print · White to pale yellowish
Reishi
Polypores
A hard, kidney-shaped bracket with a strikingly glossy, varnished-looking reddish-mahogany surface, a pale cream pore underside and often a lateral or eccentric stalk.
Spore print · Brown
Turkey Tail
Polypores
A thin, tough, fan-shaped bracket banded in concentric zones of contrasting colour and texture, growing in overlapping tiers and rosettes on dead hardwood. The underside is a fine white pore surface.
Spore print · White
Gilled Polypore
Polypores
A tough, zoned, hairy bracket whose underside is made of thick radiating gill-like plates rather than round pores, growing on dead birch and other hardwoods throughout the year.
Spore print · White
Lumpy Bracket
Polypores
A thick, chalky-white semicircular bracket with a pronounced lump above the attachment point and distinctive elongated, slot-like pores underneath.
Spore print · White
Maitake
Polypores
A large clustered polypore that builds a rosette of grey-brown, fan- to spoon-shaped fronds from a branched white stalk at the foot of old oaks. The undersides are covered in tiny white pores rather than gills.
Spore print · White
Mossy Maple Polypore
Polypores
A small perennial bracket that grows in overlapping clusters from wounds on living maples, instantly recognised by the carpet of green moss and algae that covers its cap and its very fine white pores.
Spore print · White
Mossy Maze Polypore
Polypores
A thin, tough shelf fungus with a coarsely hairy grey-white cap that is usually stained green by algae, and a distinctive greyish maze-like pore surface that breaks up into blunt teeth with age.
Spore print · White
Mustard Yellow Polypore
Polypores
A thin tiered bracket of dead hardwood whose bright mustard-yellow velvety top contrasts sharply with a dark purplish to grey-brown pore surface of very fine pores.
Spore print · White
Native Bread
Polypores
An Australian polypore whose small funnel-shaped cap rises on a stalk from a large, hard, marbled underground sclerotium buried in forest soil.
Spore print · White
Oak Mazegill
Polypores
A thick, corky, dull-coloured bracket on oak whose underside is carved into a deep labyrinth of thick-walled winding channels.
Spore print · White
Ochre Bracket
Polypores
A close relative of Turkey Tail that is thicker and stiffer, banded in warm ochre, tan and rust tones with a cushion-like swelling at the attachment.
Spore print · White
Pine Conk
Polypores
A woody, perennial bracket that forms hard hoof-shaped conks on the trunks of standing conifers, recognised by its cracked brown upper crust and irregular, maze-like yellow-brown pores.
Spore print · Yellowish brown
Purplepore Bracket
Polypores
A small, thin, greyish bracket that covers conifer deadwood in dense rows and shows a lilac to violet pore surface when fresh.
Spore print · White
Red-belted Conk
Polypores
A tough perennial bracket recognised by a shiny resinous crust banded in red-orange with a cream to white growing edge, and a hard white context. It is among the most abundant decay fungi of conifer logs in northern forests.
Spore print · White
Resinous Polypore
Polypores
A broad, soft, velvety bracket that is reddish brown with a thick white growing edge, exudes amber droplets when young, and has a white pore surface that bruises brownish.
Spore print · White
Rooting Polypore
Polypores
A tall stalked polypore that appears to grow from bare ground, its blackish scurfy stem tapering into a long root-like extension that reaches buried hardwood below.
Spore print · White
Rosy Conk
Polypores
A small, tough perennial bracket whose dull grey-brown top gives no hint of the striking rose-pink pore surface beneath. Pink flesh running right through the context confirms it.
Spore print · White
Shaggy Bracket
Polypores
A large, thick, coarsely shaggy bracket that starts bright rusty orange and ages through dark brown to black, growing high on the trunks of living broadleaved trees.
Spore print · Yellowish brown
Smoky Bracket
Polypores
A thin, flexible shelf fungus recognised by the sharp contrast between its pale buff cap, white flesh and strikingly smoke-grey to blackish pore surface that darkens further where handled.
Spore print · White
Southern Bracket
Polypores
A heavy, perennial bracket with a thick, hard, dull brown crust and a white pore surface that bruises brown at a touch. Clouds of cocoa-brown spores often dust the bracket and everything below it in late summer.
Spore print · Cocoa brown
Split Porecrust
Polypores
An extremely common white to cream resupinate polypore whose pores split and fray, becoming maze-like and finally tooth-like towards the centre.
Spore print · White