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)”
Basket Fungus
Stinkhorns
A white latticed sphere of spongy arms that hatches from a gelatinous egg and, uniquely, detaches at maturity so the whole basket can be rolled about by wind.
Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)
Blue Tooth
Toothed
A corky ground-dwelling toothed fungus recognised by the blue tint of its growing margin and the two-toned blue and orange zoning revealed when it is sliced lengthwise.
Spore print · Brown
Common Jellyspot
Jellies
Minute orange-yellow jelly blobs scattered in numbers over damp dead wood and old fence posts, among the most frequently encountered of all small fungi.
Spore print · Whitish to pale yellow
Crab Brittlegill
Gilled
A robust brittlegill with a dark wine-red cap, ochre gills and a stipe flushed pink that browns wherever it is handled, accompanied by a strong smell of shellfish.
Spore print · Ochre
Elegant Sunburst Lichen
Other Fungi
A tightly appressed, brilliant orange rock lichen forming neat rosettes of narrow radiating lobes, common on bird-perch boulders in alpine and arctic country.
Spore print · Not applicable
Common Powderhorn Lichen
Other Fungi
A Cladonia of tree bases and rotting stumps whose slender grey-green podetia taper to blunt points and are coated in fine flour-like soredia, rarely forming cups.
Spore print · Not applicable
Golden Brittlegill
Gilled
A small, brightly coloured brittlegill with one of the deepest yellow spore prints in the genus. Its cap ranges through gold, apricot, orange and rose, often on a single flush.
Spore print · Deep yellow to ochre
Giant Polypore
Polypores
A huge overlapping rosette of tan-brown zoned fans at the foot of beech and other broadleaves, with a fine white pore surface that turns black wherever it is touched.
Spore print · White
Hollyhock Rust
Other Fungi
A short-cycle rust of the mallow family that studs hollyhock leaf undersides with orange-brown wart-like pustules, each matched by a yellow spot above.
Spore print · Not applicable (brown spore masses)
Cinnamon Bracket
Polypores
A soft, evenly cinnamon-coloured bracket whose cap, flesh and pores are all the same warm ochre-brown, and which turns brilliant violet where a drop of alkali touches it.
Spore print · White
Bearded Milkcap
Gilled
A small pale milkcap of sandy birch ground, recognised by its almost unzoned whitish-pink cap, finely downy inrolled margin and unchanging white latex.
Spore print · Cream
Shaggy Scalycap
Gilled
A dry, straw-yellow mushroom bristling all over with recurved brown scales, growing in crowded clumps at the foot of trunks and giving a rusty brown spore print.
Spore print · Rusty brown
The Sickener
Gilled
A vivid scarlet brittlegill of damp conifer woodland and sphagnum, with a shiny cap whose skin peels almost to the centre, pure white gills, a white chalky stem and a white spore print.
Spore print · White
Chaga
Polypores
A black, deeply cracked sterile mass that erupts from living birch trunks like a lump of charcoal, revealing bright rusty-orange interior tissue when broken.
Spore print · Pale brown (from hidden fertile crust)
Golden Chanterelle
Gilled
A golden-yellow funnel-shaped fungus with blunt forking ridges instead of true gills running down a solid tapering stem, and a distinctive apricot-like scent.
Spore print · Pale yellow to cream
Bay Bolete
Boletes
A rich bay-brown bolete whose lemon-yellow pores flush blue-green within seconds of being touched. The stipe is brown-streaked and lacks the raised netting of the King Bolete.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Blue Band Brittlegill
Gilled
A modestly sized conifer brittlegill with a delicately lilac to azure cap dusted with a fine bloom, often paler or ochre-tinted at the centre. Its gills and spore deposit stay close to white.
Spore print · White to palest cream
Dark Honey Fungus
Gilled
A robust clustered honey fungus of conifer forests with a dark-scaly reddish-brown cap and a thick white ring edged with brown scales, spreading through the soil by black shoestring rhizomorphs.
Spore print · White
Orange Peel Fungus
Cups & Discs
Brilliant orange, thin and brittle cups that flatten, split and contort until they look exactly like scattered pieces of orange peel. It fruits in troops on bare compacted soil, track sides and gravelly ground.
Spore print · White
Field Mushroom
Gilled
The classic white mushroom of old pasture, with a dry silky cap, a thin fragile ring and gills that are a vivid bright pink when young before turning chocolate-brown. It fruits in troops and rings after rain.
Spore print · Dark brown
Flat Crep
Gilled
A small white to buff fan-shaped mushroom attached sideways to rotting hardwood, with radiating gills that darken to cinnamon and no real stem. It often grows in overlapping tiers.
Spore print · Pale cinnamon-brown
Short-stemmed Russula
Gilled
A large, chalk-white North American brittlegill with a deeply funnelled cap, crowded decurrent gills and a very short stout stipe, often pushing up in mounds through forest duff.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Ravenel's Stinkhorn
Stinkhorns
A North American stinkhorn with a nearly smooth, granular head rather than the honeycombed network of its relatives, rising from a pinkish-purple egg on sawdust and wood chips.
Spore print · Olive-brown (spores in the slimy gleba)
Rounded Earthstar
Puffballs
A small earthstar whose stalkless spore sac sits in a saucer of recurved rays, its fibrous mouth ringed by a distinct circular depressed zone. One of the most widespread earthstars worldwide.
Spore print · Brown (spore mass)