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 Ink Cap

Flaming Scalycap

Flaming Scalycap

Gilled

A brilliant golden-yellow scalycap covered in pointed sulphur-yellow scales on both cap and stipe, fruiting on mossy conifer stumps and logs.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Garlic Parachute

Garlic Parachute

Gilled

A slender beech-litter mushroom with a pale hygrophanous cap on a disproportionately long, velvety blackish rooting stem, and an unmistakable strong garlic smell.

Spore print · White

Bruising Webcap

Bruising Webcap

Gilled

A robust webcap with a slimy streaky olive-brown cap whose violet gills and flesh flush deep purple wherever they are rubbed or cut.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Graceful Bolete

Graceful Bolete

Boletes

A slim, long-stemmed bolete with a velvety chestnut cap, white pores that age flesh-pink, and an unusual pinkish-brown spore print.

Spore print · Pinkish to reddish-brown

Dingy Twiglet

Dingy Twiglet

Gilled

A small, sombre olive-brown woodland mushroom with a finely velvety cap and a pale frosted gill edge, fruiting on fallen deciduous branches.

Spore print · Olive-brown to snuff brown

Psathyrella aquatica

Psathyrella aquatica

Gilled

A small brown-capped brittlestem remarkable for producing its fruit bodies fully submerged in flowing cold water, first documented in a spring-fed river in Oregon.

Spore print · Dark brown to blackish brown

Ruby Bolete

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

Golden Oyster Mushroom

Golden Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

A vivid golden-yellow oyster mushroom that grows in dense bouquets from dead hardwood, its thin funnel-shaped caps fading to pale ochre as they age.

Spore print · White to pale lilac

Aspen Oyster Mushroom

Aspen Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

A North American oyster mushroom restricted to dead aspen and cottonwood, with pale fleshy caps in overlapping shelves and a buff-tinted rather than lilac spore print.

Spore print · White to pale buff

Gray Bolete

Gray Bolete

Boletes

A grey-capped hardwood bolete with a whitish stipe wrapped in a bold dark net and a yellow patch at the very base. Pale pores stain brownish where handled.

Spore print · Olive-brown to brown

Bitter Bolete

Bitter Bolete

Boletes

A robust brown-capped bolete with white pores that flush pink with age and a pale stipe carrying a bold dark brown network. Widespread in conifer and mixed woodland.

Spore print · Pinkish-brown

White King Bolete

White King Bolete

Boletes

A pale, almost white-capped king bolete of the American Southwest, growing with ponderosa pine and oak. Whitish stipe with a fine white net and unchanging white flesh.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Powdery Piggyback

Powdery Piggyback

Gilled

A small parasitic mushroom that grows on decaying blackening brittlegills, its rounded white cap soon breaking into a brown powdery mass of asexual spores.

Spore print · White, rarely produced

Mousepee Pinkgill

Mousepee Pinkgill

Gilled

A small grassland pinkgill with an olive-brown cap and a startling blue-green stipe that bruises deeper green, plus a pungent mouse-like smell.

Spore print · Pink

Orange Pinwheel

Orange Pinwheel

Gilled

A vivid rusty-orange miniature with a pleated, umbrella-like cap held on a wiry blackish thread of a stem, scattered through damp hardwood litter.

Spore print · White

Panaeolus olivaceus

Panaeolus olivaceus

Gilled

A small, easily overlooked grassland mottlegill with an olive-tinged hygrophanous cap that often wrinkles as it dries, mottled darkening gills and a black spore print.

Spore print · Black

Russet Toughshank

Gilled

One of the commonest litter mushrooms of oak woods: a smooth russet-brown cap on a slim, tough, hollow stem, fruiting in troops for much of the year.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Conifer Tuft

Conifer Tuft

Gilled

A tightly clustered woodland fungus of conifer stumps, recognised by its tan-ochre cap and gills that shift from whitish to a distinctive smoky grey.

Spore print · Purple-brown

Gassy Webcap

Gassy Webcap

Gilled

A stout lilac webcap of northern conifer forest with dry silky cap, ochre-saffron marbled flesh and a strong penetrating gas-like smell.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Black Poplar Mushroom

Black Poplar Mushroom

Gilled

A clustered brown-spored wood mushroom with a smooth two-toned cap that cracks in dry weather, a pale fibrous stipe and a persistent membranous ring.

Spore print · Tobacco brown

Frosty Funnel

Frosty Funnel

Gilled

A white woodland funnel whose cap carries a silky, frost-like bloom, growing in troops and arcs through deep autumn leaf litter.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Ravenel's Bolete

Ravenel's Bolete

Boletes

An unmistakable bolete wrapped in a bright sulphur-yellow powdery veil that tears to reveal a sticky reddish cap and leaves a cottony yellow ring on the stipe.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Panaeolus cyanescens

Panaeolus cyanescens

Gilled

A slender pale-capped dung mottlegill of warm regions whose flesh and stipe stain blue-green where handled, with mottled black gills and a black spore print.

Spore print · Black

Powdery Brittlegill

Powdery Brittlegill

Gilled

A medium-sized brittlegill with a matt, slate-blue to grey-green cap covered in a fine frosted bloom. It is common with oak in parks, avenues and open woodland.

Spore print · Cream