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 “Ink cap mushroom (general)”
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
Dog Stinkhorn
Stinkhorns
A slim, delicate stinkhorn whose tapering pale stalk ends in an orange tip smeared with dark spore slime. It has no separate cap, which distinguishes it from the larger Phallus species.
Spore print · Olive-brown (spores in the slimy gleba)
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
Green Skinhead
Gilled
An unusual olive-green webcap with a dry, finely felted cap, green gills that rust with age and greenish-yellow flesh. Green is rare among gilled fungi, making it easy to spot.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Lactarius scrobiculatus
Gilled
A large yellow, zoned milkcap with a shaggy bearded cap margin and a stipe pitted with distinct coloured hollows (scrobicules). Its white latex turns sulphur-yellow within seconds of exposure.
Spore print · Pale cream to pale yellow
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
Giant Puffball
Puffballs
An unmistakable white sphere that can reach the size of a football or larger, appearing in grassland and hedgerows. It has no stipe, no gills and no cap, and its interior ripens from firm white to a powdery olive-brown spore mass.
Spore print · Olive-brown (spore mass)
Silky Pinkgill
Gilled
A common small brown grassland pinkgill with a silky, strongly hygrophanous cap, farinaceous smell and pink spore print.
Spore print · Pink
Gabled False Morel
Morels & Allies
A spring false morel of eastern hardwood forest whose chestnut-brown cap is folded into two to four broad, flaring lobes with pale wavy margins, sitting on a stout white ribbed stalk.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Devil's Dipstick
Stinkhorns
A slim, tapering, orange to pinkish stinkhorn with no distinct cap, its pointed upper third coated in dark olive spore slime. It rises from a white egg in mulch and rotting hardwood debris.
Spore print · Not applicable
Dark Fieldcap
Gilled
A sombre brown woodland fieldcap with a greasy, wrinkling cap and a persistent membranous ring that stains dark from falling spores. It grows on rich, often calcareous soil along shaded woodland paths.
Spore print · Dark brown
Beechwood Sickener
Gilled
A compact scarlet brittlegill restricted to beech woods, distinguished from its conifer relatives by firmer flesh, a matt cap whose skin peels only part-way, and crowded white gills.
Spore print · White
Birch Milkcap
Gilled
A small tawny orange-brown birch associate with a matt, slightly wrinkled cap and a small pointed umbo. Its scanty white latex slowly turns yellow when smeared on a white tissue.
Spore print · Pale cream
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
Cleft-foot Amanita
Gilled
An eastern North American amanita recognised by its dark brown, patch-flecked cap and by the abrupt basal bulb that splits into vertical clefts. Cut or bruised tissue slowly darkens to reddish brown.
Spore print · White
Deadly Dapperling
Gilled
A small, squat dapperling with a pale cap broken into concentric bands of pinkish- to purplish-brown scales and a stem girdled below the ring with matching fibrous bands. It favours grassy urban ground and hedgerows.
Spore print · White
Variable Webcap
Gilled
A heavy-bodied webcap with a slightly greasy grey-brown cap, violet-tinted young gills and a swollen club-shaped stem base. It forms mycorrhizal partnerships with spruce and pine in northern and montane woodland.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Hooded False Morel
Morels & Allies
An autumn false morel whose tan to dark reddish-brown cap is folded into a two- or three-lobed saddle or mitre rather than a brain. It grows on well-rotted conifer wood and woody debris.
Spore print · White to pale yellowish
Cortinarius gentilis
Gilled
A small, slender, tawny-orange webcap of mossy conifer forest, with thick widely spaced ochre gills and yellowish veil bands on a slim stem. Its dry silky cap carries a sharp umbo.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Grey Milkcap
Gilled
A thin-fleshed lilac-grey milkcap of damp birch woods whose white latex dries grey-green on the gills. The greasy, smooth cap and grey-staining pale gills are its key marks.
Spore print · Pale cream
Grey Knight
Gilled
A soft grey knight of pine woods, with a dry cap densely covered in fine radiating fibrils and scales, white sinuate gills and a brittle white stipe. It is the commonest of a confusing group of grey Tricholoma species.
Spore print · White
Man on Horseback
Gilled
A stout, sulphur-yellow-gilled Tricholoma with a greasy olive-yellow cap that is usually half-buried in sand under pines. Its notched bright yellow gills and ringless pale stem are the key characters.
Spore print · White
Slender Parasol
Gilled
A tall, elegantly slim parasol whose pale cap carries a distinctly pointed nipple at the centre and only fine, sparse scales. Its stem is slender and faintly fibrillose rather than boldly snakeskin-patterned.
Spore print · White
Rainbow Chanterelle
Gilled
A conifer-associated chanterelle whose young cap carries a distinctive pinkish to salmon bloom over orange, contrasting with vivid egg-yolk false gills. It grows with spruce and pine across northern North America.
Spore print · Pale yellow to cream