Mushroom Identifier

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.

Showing results for Brown Fly Agaric or European Brown Blusher

Spring Brittlestem

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

Giant Club

Giant Club

Corals & Clubs

A conspicuous unbranched club up to 30 cm tall, shaped like a pestle with a broad wrinkled head, ochre-yellow to tan and bruising purple-brown where handled.

Spore print · White to pale ochre

Common Bonnet

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

Cedar Cup

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

Lake's Bolete

Lake's Bolete

Boletes

A scaly reddish-brown bolete of Douglas-fir woods with large radial yellow pores and a ring zone. Flesh at the very stalk base often flushes blue-green.

Spore print · Olive-brown to cinnamon

Goldleaf Shield

Goldleaf Shield

Gilled

A small shield mushroom recognised by the contrast between its wrinkled brown cap and its bright chrome-yellow stem. It fruits on decaying hardwood twigs and buried debris.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink

Cracked Cap Polypore

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

Powdery Amanita

Powdery Amanita

Gilled

A small, slender, ringless amanita whose grey-brown cap looks dusted with flour, with a strongly grooved margin and only powdery grey remnants at the slightly swollen base.

Spore print · White

Scurfy Twiglet

Scurfy Twiglet

Gilled

A small tawny-brown mushroom of woodchip beds and fallen twigs, recognised by the whitish scurfy veil flecks along its cap margin and its strongly hygrophanous, fading cap.

Spore print · Pale ochre-brown

Shield Dapperling

Shield Dapperling

Gilled

A slender woodland dapperling with an ochre-brown scaly cap, a shaggy fringed margin, and a stem sheathed below the vague ring in loose woolly cotton like a rolled-down sock.

Spore print · White

Winter Polypore

Winter Polypore

Polypores

A small, tough, centrally stalked polypore with a dull grey-brown velvety cap and fine white decurrent pores, notable for fruiting in the cold months when little else is out.

Spore print · White

Myrtle Rust

Other Fungi

A rust of the myrtle family that coats expanding shoots, buds and young leaves in startling egg-yolk yellow spore powder, later leaving grey-brown scarred and distorted tissue.

Spore print · Not applicable (bright yellow spore masses)

Pale Brittlestem

Pale Brittlestem

Gilled

A fragile, pale-capped clustering mushroom with a toothed veil fringe on the cap edge, gills that shift from white through grey to purple-brown, and a brittle hollow white stem.

Spore print · Purple-brown

Umbrella Polypore

Umbrella Polypore

Polypores

A large branched cluster bearing dozens of small circular grey-brown caps, each with its own central stalk, growing from an underground tuber near hardwood roots.

Spore print · White

Manzanita Bolete

Manzanita Bolete

Boletes

A large western North American scaber stalk with a deep red-brown, often sticky cap, coarse black scabers on a white stem, and flesh that greys and blackens when cut.

Spore print · Ochre-brown

White Pine Blister Rust

White Pine Blister Rust

Other Fungi

A two-host rust that raises orange, blister-like sacs on the bark of five-needle pines and clothes currant leaf undersides with yellow pustules and hair-like brown columns.

Spore print · Not applicable (orange-yellow spore masses)

Variable Oysterling

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

Potato Earthball

Potato Earthball

Puffballs

A pale, almost smooth earthball that looks like a small buried potato, with a thin rind that cracks into fine scurfy patches. The interior ripens from white to a purple-brown dust.

Spore print · Purple-brown to blackish (spore mass)

Desert Shaggy Mane

Desert Shaggy Mane

Puffballs

A tall desert fungus with a woody stalk carrying an elongate, shaggy white capsule that splits to release blackish-brown powder. It persists for months in dry climates long after fruiting.

Spore print · Blackish brown

Snakeskin Grisette

Snakeskin Grisette

Gilled

A large ringless Amanita whose bronze-brown cap carries ragged grey veil patches and whose stem is wrapped in snakeskin-like grey bands above a crumbling volva.

Spore print · White

Russell's Bolete

Russell's Bolete

Boletes

A tall, elegant bolete of eastern oak woods, instantly known by its extraordinarily long stipe carved with deep, ragged, shaggy ridges and by its cracked olive-brown cap.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Paddy Straw Mushroom

Paddy Straw Mushroom

Gilled

A tropical Volvariella that emerges from a dark, egg-like universal veil, leaving a thick sac at the stem base beneath a silky grey-brown cap with free pink gills.

Spore print · Pink to salmon pink

Red-mouth Bolete

Red-mouth Bolete

Boletes

An eastern North American red-pored bolete with a velvety brown cap, dark red pores that flash blue at a touch, and coarse dark red hairs clothing the stipe base.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Spring King Bolete

Spring King Bolete

Boletes

A western North American porcini relative that fruits in clustered groups near melting snow in mountain conifer forest, often half-buried with a soil-crusted reddish-brown cap.

Spore print · Olive-brown