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.
Ringless Honey Mushroom
Gilled
A honey-brown clustered wood fungus that matches the true Honey Mushroom in colour and habit but has no ring at all on its long tapering stem. It swarms in huge tufts around the bases of oaks and other hardwoods.
Spore print · White
Rooting Cauliflower
Other Fungi
A very large cream rosette of curled, ribbon-like lobes rising from a long tapering rooting base attached to conifer roots in western North America.
Spore print · White to pale yellow
Rooting Polypore
Polypores
A tall stalked polypore that appears to grow from bare ground, its blackish scurfy stem tapering into a long root-like extension that reaches buried hardwood below.
Spore print · White
Rooting Shank
Gilled
A tall, slender woodland mushroom with a wrinkled, greasy ochre cap, widely spaced white gills and a long tapering stem that continues underground as a deep root-like tail.
Spore print · White
Rose Black Spot
Other Fungi
A leaf-inhabiting sac fungus that marks rose foliage with sooty black spots bearing radiating, feathered margins and yellow haloes. Affected leaves yellow and drop from the base of the plant upward.
Spore print · Not applicable
Rose Rust
Other Fungi
A rose-specific rust that speckles leaf undersides with orange pustules from late spring, replacing them with sooty black telia by autumn.
Spore print · Not applicable (orange then black spore masses)
Rose Spindles
Corals & Clubs
A scarce, delicate club fungus forming slender rose-pink unbranched spindles among moss and short turf. Its clear pink colour is unique among temperate grassland clubs.
Spore print · White
Rosy Bonnet
Gilled
A stout, evenly rose-pink bonnet of beech and oak litter, larger and firmer than most of its genus, with widely spaced pale gills and a pronounced radish smell.
Spore print · White
Rosy Brittlegill
Gilled
A hard-fleshed rose-red brittlegill of beech woods with a distinctive matt, chalky cap surface and a stipe often flushed pink at the base.
Spore print · Cream
Rosy Conk
Polypores
A small, tough perennial bracket whose dull grey-brown top gives no hint of the striking rose-pink pore surface beneath. Pink flesh running right through the context confirms it.
Spore print · White
Rosy Crust
Crusts
A thin waxy crust in warm salmon-pink to coral-orange shades, spreading along dead attached twigs of hazel, oak and gorse.
Spore print · White
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)
Rosy Wood Mushroom
Gilled
A delicate, small-statured Agaricus with pinkish-lilac fibrils over a cream cap and a stipe base that flushes chrome yellow when handled. It fruits in woodland and park litter.
Spore print · Dark brown
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)
Roundspored Oysterling
Gilled
A minute white shell- or fan-shaped fungus that sits directly on fallen twigs and bramble stems, distinguished microscopically by its almost perfectly spherical spores.
Spore print · Pale ochre-brown
Royal Bolete
Boletes
A striking butter bolete with a rose-pink to purple-red velvety cap over bright yellow pores and a yellow, finely netted stipe. Flesh yellow with little or no blueing.
Spore print · Olive-brown
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
Ruddy Panus
Gilled
A tough, densely hairy little funnel- or fan-shaped mushroom in tan to rusty tones, with crowded decurrent gills that are lilac-tinted when fresh and fade to buff with age.
Spore print · White
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
Russell's Bolete
Boletes
A tall, elegant bolete of eastern oak woods, instantly known by its extraordinarily long stipe carved with deep, ragged, shaggy ridges and by its cracked olive-brown cap.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Saffron Milk Cap
Gilled
A stout orange milkcap with concentric bands on the cap, decurrent orange gills, and carrot-orange latex that slowly turns the flesh green. It grows only with pines.
Spore print · Pale cream to buff
Saffron Milkcap
Gilled
A pine-associated milkcap with a concentrically zoned carrot-orange funnel cap, decurrent orange gills, carrot-coloured latex and a pitted stem, the whole fungus staining dull green where damaged.
Spore print · Pale ochre to buff
Saffrondrop Bonnet
Gilled
A slender woodland bonnet whose broken stem releases vivid saffron-orange latex that stains everything it touches. It is closely tied to beech leaf litter on lime-rich ground.
Spore print · White
Salt-loving Agaricus
Gilled
A dense, thick-fleshed white Agaricus of salty ground, with a cap that cracks into coarse patches, reddening flesh, a sheathing ring and a briny odour.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Sandy Stiltball
Puffballs
A striking fungus with a tall, woody, shaggily scaled stalk rising from a buried sac-like volva and topped by a flattened disc of rusty-brown spore powder. It grows on dry, sandy, nutrient-poor soil.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Scaly Earthball
Puffballs
A tan to ochre earthball whose thin, finely scaly skin sits on an unusually long, furrowed rooting stalk. The interior ripens from white to a dusty blackish-brown spore mass.
Spore print · Blackish brown (spore mass)
Scaly Inkcap
Gilled
A clustered inkcap whose buff-brown bell-shaped cap is decorated with felty whitish veil patches. It fruits in tufts on hardwood stumps and buried wood.
Spore print · Black
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
Scaly Shield
Gilled
A large pale shield mushroom whose whitish cap carries brown fibrillose scales over the centre, with free gills flushing pink and a stout ringless stem. It favours sawdust and mulch.
Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink
Scaly Webcap
Gilled
A strikingly shaggy webcap covered in dark brown erect scales on both cap and stem, with violet-tinged young gills and a violaceous stem apex. It partners with birch on damp acid soils.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Scaly Wood Mushroom
Gilled
A tall woodland Agaricus clothed in dark reddish-brown fibrous scales, whose white flesh turns vivid blood-red within seconds of being cut. Fruits in conifer and mixed forest litter.
Spore print · Dark brown
Scarlet Bonnet
Gilled
A small bonnet with a coral-pink to scarlet conical cap that fades towards orange-pink with age, carried on a slender pale stem. It fruits among mosses, grasses and conifer needles.
Spore print · White
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
Scarlet Elf Cup
Cups & Discs
A vivid scarlet cup 1-5 cm across, lined with intense red on the inside and whitish and felty on the outside, growing on damp mossy hardwood sticks. It is one of the earliest and most colourful fungi of the year.
Spore print · White
Scarlet Waxcap
Gilled
A small, vividly blood-red grassland mushroom with thick, waxy, broadly attached gills and a smooth red stem, one of the classic waxcaps of ancient short turf.
Spore print · White
Scarlet-stemmed Bolete
Boletes
A robust bolete with a pale felted cap, lemon pores that flash blue at a touch, and a stout stalk netted carmine-red over yellow.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Scarletina Bolete
Boletes
A stout, dark-capped bolete with blood-red pores and a yellow stipe peppered with fine red dots, whose lemon flesh turns instantly inky blue when cut.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Sculpted Puffball
Puffballs
A firm white ball of western mountain conifer forests, covered in low pyramidal felty warts each marked by a darker central point. The interior is white and homogeneous before turning to olive-brown powder.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Scurfy Twiglet
Gilled
A small tawny-brown mushroom of woodchip beds and fallen twigs, recognised by the whitish scurfy veil flecks along its cap margin and its strongly hygrophanous, fading cap.
Spore print · Pale ochre-brown
Sebacina incrustans
Crusts
A greyish-white waxy crust that creeps over soil and swallows grass stems, twigs and dead leaves in its path, coating them in a smooth continuous skin. Its upward-turned free edge is often shallowly lobed.
Spore print · White
Sepia Brittlegill
Gilled
A dull sepia-brown brittlegill of grassy parkland and path edges, recognised by its strongly ridged cap margin and strong unpleasant odour. It is typically found under oak and lime.
Spore print · Cream
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
Shaggy Ink Cap
Gilled
A tall, white, cylindrical mushroom clothed in shaggy upturned scales, whose gills pass from white through pink to black before dissolving into inky liquid. The movable ring and black spore print are confirming features.
Spore print · Black
Shaggy Mane
Gilled
A tall white cylindrical mushroom covered in shaggy upturned scales, whose gills blacken and dissolve into an inky liquid from the cap margin upward as it matures.
Spore print · Black
Shaggy Parasol
Gilled
A stout, heavily shaggy relative of the Parasol Mushroom with a smooth unbanded stem, a bulbous base and pale flesh that stains saffron then dull reddish brown where it is cut.
Spore print · White
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
Shaggy Scarlet Cup
Cups & Discs
A miniature scarlet goblet clothed in long white shaggy hairs, borne on a slender stalk from buried hardwood twigs. The combination of red interior and white woolly exterior is unmistakable.
Spore print · White
Sheathed Woodtuft
Gilled
A tufted stump mushroom whose hygrophanous cap dries in two tones from the centre out, above a narrow ring and a stem clad below in coarse dark upturned scales.
Spore print · Ochre-brown to cinnamon brown