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 Brown Fly Agaric or European Brown Blusher

Stinking Earthfan

Stinking Earthfan

Corals & Clubs

An upright, tough, coral-like fungus with purple- to blackish-brown branches ending in flattened, whitish, fan-shaped tips, growing from soil in conifer woodland. Its strong, penetrating odour usually announces it before it is seen.

Spore print · Purple-brown

Fluted Bird's Nest

Fluted Bird's Nest

Other Fungi

A tiny vase-shaped fungus, shaggy and brown outside, with a silvery-grey inner wall marked by lengthwise grooves and a clutch of disc-like 'eggs' inside. The grooving separates it from every other common bird's nest fungus.

Spore print · Not applicable (spores held in peridioles)

Magpie Inkcap

Magpie Inkcap

Gilled

A tall, dramatic inkcap whose blackish-brown cap is broken into a pied pattern by large white felty veil patches. It stands singly in deep beech litter on lime-rich soils and dissolves into black ink within a day.

Spore print · Black

Hygrophorus Milkcap

Hygrophorus Milkcap

Gilled

An orange-brown North American milkcap recognised instantly by its very widely spaced, waxy-looking white gills and copious white latex that does not change colour. Its dry, velvety, wrinkled cap adds to the resemblance to a waxcap.

Spore print · White

Common Inkcap

Common Inkcap

Gilled

A clustered grey-brown inkcap whose egg-shaped cap opens into a ribbed bell and then digests itself from the rim inward, dripping away as black ink. It rises in dense tufts from buried wood in gardens, verges and woodland edges.

Spore print · Black

Dry Rot Fungus

Dry Rot Fungus

Crusts

A flat, spreading wood-decay fungus forming rusty-brown wrinkled sheets edged with a thick white cottony margin, best known from structural conifer timber in damp buildings. Its pale, cord-like strands can travel long distances across masonry.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Yellow-tipped Coral

Yellow-tipped Coral

Corals & Clubs

A large branched coral fungus with salmon to apricot-pink branches tipped in clear yellow, growing from woodland soil. Its flesh typically discolours brownish where bruised or cut.

Spore print · Pale yellow-ochre

Pacific Golden Chanterelle

Pacific Golden Chanterelle

Gilled

The large golden funnel-capped chanterelle of Pacific Northwest conifer forests, with blunt forking ridges instead of true gills running down a tapering stem. Its cap surface is finely fibrillose, often with a pinkish or brownish cast.

Spore print · Pale yellow to cream