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 Mottlegill or Fragile Inky Cap”
Cedar-Apple Rust
Other Fungi
A rust fungus that alternates between junipers, where it forms brown galls that push out orange gelatinous horns in spring rain, and apples, where it makes bright orange leaf spots.
Spore print · Not applicable
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
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
Blushing Morel
Morels & Allies
A pale, greyish to yellow-brown morel of mulch and disturbed ground whose ridges and stalk stain pinkish, rusty or ochre-brown where handled or with age. It is one of the earliest-branching lineages in the genus.
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 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)
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
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 Bolete
Boletes
A stout pine bolete with a dry, velvety orange-ochre cap and small dark cinnamon pores. The pale yellow flesh usually flushes blue where cut.
Spore print · Olive-brown
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
Dead Man's Foot
Puffballs
A large, club- or foot-shaped fungus whose interior is packed with pea-sized chambers set in dark jelly, ripening from the top down into rusty brown dust. It grows on the poorest, most compacted ground.
Spore print · Cinnamon to rusty brown (spore mass)
Yellow-tipped Coral
Corals & Clubs
A large branched coral fungus with salmon to apricot-pink branches tipped in clear yellow, growing from woodland soil. Its flesh typically discolours brownish where bruised or cut.
Spore print · Pale yellow-ochre
Chestnut Blight
Other Fungi
A bark-inhabiting sac fungus that forms sunken orange-brown cankers studded with pinhead-sized orange fruiting bodies. Fans of buff mycelium spread beneath the cracked bark of the affected stem.
Spore print · Not applicable
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
Depressed Hedgehog
Toothed
A small toothed fungus with an orange-tan cap dimpled at the centre and an underside of crowded brittle spines. It grows in sphagnum and moss beds under conifers.
Spore print · White
Royal Bolete
Boletes
A striking butter bolete with a rose-pink to purple-red velvety cap over bright yellow pores and a yellow, finely netted stipe. Flesh yellow with little or no blueing.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Bluing Bolete
Boletes
A pale, shaggy-capped bolete of sandy heathland whose every surface flushes an intense cornflower blue within seconds of being touched or cut.
Spore print · Pale straw yellow
Oyster Rollrim
Gilled
A stalkless ochre to yellow-brown fan on conifer wood, recognised by its inrolled wavy margin and soft, crowded, strongly forked and cross-veined orange-buff gills that separate easily from the flesh.
Spore print · Pale yellowish brown
Scarlet Bonnet
Gilled
A small bonnet with a coral-pink to scarlet conical cap that fades towards orange-pink with age, carried on a slender pale stem. It fruits among mosses, grasses and conifer needles.
Spore print · White
Spectacular Rustgill
Gilled
A big, showy orange-tawny agaric that fruits in massive clusters at the base of broadleaf stumps, with a fibrillose scaly cap, ringed stipe and rusty orange spore print.
Spore print · Rusty orange-brown
Golden Scruffy Collybia
Gilled
A small, brilliant orange-yellow woodland mushroom whose cap is studded with pointed, granular scales, contrasting with widely spaced white gills on a shaggy yellow stalk.
Spore print · White
Birch Brittlegill
Gilled
A small, delicate brittlegill with a pale rosy or almost white cap, found only with birch on wet acid ground. Its thin flesh and grooved margin make it one of the frailest of the genus.
Spore print · White
Ruby Bolete
Boletes
A small, brilliantly red-capped bolete of parks and grassy woodland edges, recognised by yellow pores that bruise blue and tiny carrot-orange dots in the stem base.
Spore print · Olive-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