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 Panther Cap

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pale Milkcap

Pale Milkcap

Gilled

A plain, pale pinkish-buff milkcap of beech woods with a smooth, slightly greasy cap, crowded pale gills and copious white latex that does not change colour. Its very lack of markings is its most useful field character.

Spore print · Pale cream

Neonothopanus gardneri

Gilled

A large Brazilian bracket-like agaric that grows from the leaf bases of babassu palms and glows a vivid yellow-green after dark. Its off-centre stipe, funnel-shaped tan cap and strongly decurrent gills are diagnostic.

Spore print · White

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

Scaly Rustgill

Scaly Rustgill

Gilled

A small to medium tawny-yellow woodland mushroom of conifer debris, with a finely scaly cap, yellow gills that rust with age, and a bright rusty spore print.

Spore print · Rusty orange-brown

Wrinkled Peach

Wrinkled Peach

Gilled

An unmistakable rubbery-fleshed mushroom whose apricot to salmon cap is embossed with a raised network of pale ridges, growing on dead elm and other decaying hardwood.

Spore print · Pink

Wrinkled Fieldcap

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

White Birch Bolete

White Birch Bolete

Boletes

A ghostly pale scaber stalk of wet birch bogs, almost white overall with soft watery flesh and a faint greenish tinge to the cap and stem base.

Spore print · Pale snuff-brown

Galerina marginata

Galerina marginata

Gilled

A small, ringed, tawny-brown wood-rotting agaric with a strongly hygrophanous cap and a rusty spore print, fruiting in troops on decaying logs and mossy stumps.

Spore print · Rust-brown

Almond Mushroom

Almond Mushroom

Gilled

A warm-climate Agaricus of compost and enriched garden soil, recognised by its brown-fibrillose cap, large pendulous ring and strong almond-like aroma.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown