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 Red-Capped Butter Bolete

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

Lactarius scrobiculatus

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

Beech Mushroom

Beech Mushroom

Gilled

A tightly clustered wood mushroom with small tan caps marked by pale mottled spots and firm white stipes fused at a common base, fruiting on beech and other hardwood trunks in autumn.

Spore print · White

Silky Pinkgill

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

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

Hare's Foot Inkcap

Hare's Foot Inkcap

Gilled

A short-lived inkcap whose young cylindrical cap is wrapped in dense silvery-white wool like a hare's foot, then expands, splits, and curls back within hours. Common on woodchip and litter.

Spore print · Black

Devil's Dipstick

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

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

Birch Milkcap

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

Beechwood Sickener

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

Wood Blewit

Wood Blewit

Gilled

A thick-set, late-season woodland agaric coloured violet throughout when young, with a smooth greasy cap, sinuate lilac gills, a fibrous ringless stem and a pale pink spore print.

Spore print · Pale pink

The Prince

The Prince

Gilled

One of the largest field mushrooms, with a squarish young cap patterned in fine golden-brown fibrous scales, a big pendulous ring and flesh that yellows slowly where handled. It smells strongly of almonds.

Spore print · Dark brown

Cleft-foot Amanita

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

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

Inky Mushroom

Inky Mushroom

Gilled

A grey-scaled woodland Agaricus with a dark-centred cap, a chrome-yellow staining stipe base and a distinctly inky odour.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown

Variable Webcap

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

Ghost Fungus

Ghost Fungus

Gilled

A large Australian bracket-forming mushroom with a cream cap mottled in grey, blue and purple tones, decurrent white gills and a short eccentric stipe; its gills emit a striking greenish glow at night.

Spore print · White to cream

Cortinarius gentilis

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

Flowerpot Parasol

Flowerpot Parasol

Gilled

A slender, brilliant sulphur-yellow mushroom that appears overnight in the pots of houseplants and in greenhouse beds, with a powdery pleated cap and a fragile ringed stem. It collapses within a day, often before anyone notices it opened.

Spore print · White

Hooded False Morel

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

Grey Milkcap

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

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

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

Milky Mushroom

Milky Mushroom

Gilled

A stout, entirely milk-white tropical mushroom with a thick fleshy cap, crowded white gills and a solid club-shaped stipe. It fruits from casing soil over composting straw in hot, humid conditions.

Spore print · White