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 Tumor of a plant (Gall)

Gypsy Mushroom

Gypsy Mushroom

Gilled

A sturdy ochre mushroom with a radially wrinkled cap dusted silvery-white over the centre, rusty-brown gills, and the unusual distinction of a true membranous ring on a webcap.

Spore print · Rusty ochre-brown

Bronze Bolete

Bronze Bolete

Boletes

The darkest member of the porcini group, with a sooty bronze to almost black velvety cap over a brown stipe finely netted in pale lines. Flesh white and unchanging.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic

Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic

Puffballs

A small, brilliant red spore ball with star-shaped lips, sheathed in clear jelly and raised on a stalk of tangled gelatinous cords. It grows on bare mossy clay banks in oak-rich hardwood forest.

Spore print · Pale yellowish to whitish

Golden Bootleg

Golden Bootleg

Gilled

A large and striking golden-ochre mushroom of nutrient-rich waste ground, coated in a fine granular powder and carrying a big flaring ring on a sheathed, boot-like stem.

Spore print · Ochre-brown

Freckled Dapperling

Freckled Dapperling

Gilled

A stout dapperling of nettle beds and rich ground, its dry ochre-brown cap bristling with erect pyramidal spines that rub off at a touch and its gills forking near the stem.

Spore print · White

Witch's Hair Lichen

Witch's Hair Lichen

Other Fungi

A pale yellowish-green hanging lichen forming soft tangled tresses on conifer branches, distinguished from beard lichens by the complete absence of a central cord.

Spore print · Not applicable

Butter Bolete

Butter Bolete

Boletes

A solid golden-pored bolete of warm broadleaf woods, with a dry tan-brown cap, a yellow finely netted stipe and a tapering rooting base. Flesh pale yellow, blueing slowly and weakly.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Netted Fieldcap

Netted Fieldcap

Gilled

A delicate wood-inhabiting fieldcap with a slimy greyish-lilac cap embossed with a network of raised veins, and rusty-brown gills on a fragile white stipe.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Mauve Parachute

Mauve Parachute

Gilled

A jewel-like tropical parachute with a deeply pleated purple-red cap, pale distant gills and a shining black hair of a stem, scattered on fallen twigs and leaves.

Spore print · White

Velvet Shield

Velvet Shield

Gilled

A handsome dark shield mushroom with a network of raised brown veins and scales across the cap and gills edged in a distinct dark brown fringe. It grows on decaying hardwood.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink

Rosy Earthstar

Rosy Earthstar

Puffballs

One of the larger earthstars, with thick fleshy rays that flush pinkish-red on their inner surface when fresh and a stalkless buff spore sac with a silky, ungrooved mouth.

Spore print · Brown (spore mass)

Small Stagshorn

Small Stagshorn

Jellies

Small, tough-gelatinous yellow spikes that stand upright in groups along dead hardwood, usually unbranched and rarely more than a couple of centimetres tall.

Spore print · White to pale yellowish

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

Scarlet Caterpillarclub

Scarlet Caterpillarclub

Other Fungi

A small bright orange club fungus that grows out of the buried pupa or larva of a moth. Digging carefully beneath the club reveals the orange-stained insect from which it arises.

Spore print · White

Midden Inkcap

Midden Inkcap

Gilled

A miniature counterpart of the Shaggy Inkcap that lives on manure heaps, with a white scaly cylindrical cap, a slender ringed stem and the same rapid melt into black ink.

Spore print · Black

Pear Fibrecap

Pear Fibrecap

Gilled

A pale ochre fibrecap that flushes rusty red where handled and carries a strong sweet scent of ripe pears. A robust species of broadleaf woodland on richer soils.

Spore print · Snuff-brown

Mustard Yellow Polypore

Mustard Yellow Polypore

Polypores

A thin tiered bracket of dead hardwood whose bright mustard-yellow velvety top contrasts sharply with a dark purplish to grey-brown pore surface of very fine pores.

Spore print · White

Hairy Rubber Cup

Hairy Rubber Cup

Cups & Discs

A tough, rubbery goblet with a smooth reddish-brown disc set inside a blackish, densely bristly cup. Its gelatinous-rubbery texture is unlike that of any other brown woodland cup.

Spore print · White

Lace Lichen

Lace Lichen

Other Fungi

A pale greenish lichen that hangs in long lacy, net-like curtains from oak branches in coastal fog country, unmistakable for its mesh of interconnected strands.

Spore print · Not applicable

Crimped Gill

Crimped Gill

Gilled

A tiny, tough bracket that forms tiered rows of tawny-zoned fans on fallen hardwood branches, its underside covered in crimped, forking white folds rather than true gills.

Spore print · White

Frosty Fibrecap

Frosty Fibrecap

Gilled

A rich chestnut-brown fibrecap whose umbo carries whitish felted veil remnants like a dusting of frost. Frequent on beech-wood paths and calcareous banks.

Spore print · Snuff-brown

Cortinarius orellanus

Cortinarius orellanus

Gilled

A medium-sized tawny webcap of oak and beech woodland with a dry, finely scaly convex cap, thick distant cinnamon gills and a tapering yellow-brown stipe without veil belts.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Lantern Stinkhorn

Lantern Stinkhorn

Stinkhorns

Recognisable by its distinctly ribbed, angular stalk that ends in a cluster of short arms fused into a lantern-like point, with dark spore slime on the inner arm faces.

Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)

Brown Shaggy Parasol

Brown Shaggy Parasol

Gilled

A robust parasol of gardens and compost-enriched ground, with coarse brown cap scales, reddening flesh, a thick double ring and an abruptly rimmed bulb at the stem base.

Spore print · White