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 “Chicken of the Woods”
Cobalt Crust
Crusts
An unmistakable resupinate fungus forming intense indigo to cobalt-blue velvety patches on the underside of fallen hardwood branches.
Spore print · White
Mica Cap
Gilled
A small tawny-honey inkcap with a deeply grooved cap sparkling with mica-like granules when fresh, fruiting in dense clusters at the base of hardwood stumps.
Spore print · Dark brown to blackish
Silky Rosegill
Gilled
A tall pale mushroom of compost and cultivated ground with a slightly greasy grey cap, free gills that turn salmon pink, no ring, and a large white sac at the stem base.
Spore print · Pink to salmon pink
Weeping Polypore
Polypores
A massive lumpy bracket at the foot of oak trees, unmistakable when young for the beads of amber liquid that stand all over its buff upper surface.
Spore print · Whitish to pale yellow
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
Snowy Waxcap
Gilled
A small, slender, entirely white waxcap with thick decurrent gills and a tapering stem, often the last waxcap still fruiting in the turf after the first frosts.
Spore print · White
Black Bulgar
Cups & Discs
Rubbery black top-shaped buttons crowding the bark of freshly fallen oak, with a shiny black fertile disc that leaves dark spore smudges on the fingers.
Spore print · Blackish brown
White Spindles
Corals & Clubs
Clusters of slender, brittle, pure white unbranched clubs that grow in tight tufts among moss and short grass. They snap at the slightest pressure, giving the species its name.
Spore print · White
Orange Mycena
Gilled
A vividly orange, sticky-capped bonnet that grows in dense tufts on hardwood logs and is instantly recognised by the bright orange edges of its otherwise pale gills.
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
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
Rufous Milkcap
Gilled
A deep brick-red milkcap of acid pine and birch woodland, recognised by the sharp little point at the centre of a dry, matt cap. Its white latex stays white and is produced abundantly.
Spore print · Pale cream
Eastern Cauliflower Mushroom
Other Fungi
A large cream rosette built from broad, flat, concentrically zoned leaf-like lobes, growing at the base of oaks and other hardwoods in eastern North America.
Spore print · White to pale yellow
Golden Spindles
Corals & Clubs
Vivid egg-yellow spindles that fuse at the base into tight bundles, each club tapering to a fine point that browns with age. A signature fungus of old, unfertilised turf.
Spore print · White
Clustered Brittlestem
Gilled
A brittlestem that grows in tight bouquets of dozens of slender stems fused at a common base, each carrying a small conical tan cap. The stems are white, hollow and snap cleanly.
Spore print · Dark purple-brown
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
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
Sulphur Tuft
Gilled
A very common stump fungus forming crowded tufts of small sulphur-yellow caps with rusty centres, sulphur-yellow gills that age greenish then purple-brown, and a purple-brown spore print.
Spore print · Purple-brown
Green-spored Parasol
Gilled
A large lawn parasol of warm regions, unique among the big scaly agarics in dropping a green to grey-green spore print and in having mature gills that dull from white to sage green.
Spore print · Green to greyish-green
Lurid Bolete
Boletes
A red-pored bolete of limy soils recognised by the coarse red network covering its stipe and by the thin orange-red line revealed just above the tubes when the fruit body is cut lengthways.
Spore print · Olive-brown
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
Pink Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
A tropical and subtropical oyster mushroom forming rosettes of thin salmon-pink to rose fans on dead hardwood, the colour fading to buff as the fruit bodies mature.
Spore print · Pale pink to whitish
Pholiotina rugosa
Gilled
A small rusty-spored mushroom of mulch and lawns with a tawny wrinkled cap and, unlike the true conecaps, a distinct movable membranous ring on the slender stipe.
Spore print · Rusty 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