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 Scaber Stalk”
Torn Fibrecap
Gilled
A small, drab, grey-brown fibrecap whose cap surface breaks up into ragged torn fibrils and scales. A pioneer of sandy tracks, heathland and young conifer plantations.
Spore print · Dull brown
Yellow Swamp Brittlegill
Gilled
A striking pure chrome-yellow brittlegill of boggy birch woods, identified by its bright unfaded cap and by flesh that turns grey and eventually black where cut or bruised.
Spore print · Pale ochre
Snowy Inkcap
Gilled
A small, brilliantly white inkcap coated in a floury veil, growing on cow and horse dung in pasture. Its pure white cap darkens and dissolves to black within a day.
Spore print · Black
Violet-gray Bolete
Boletes
A handsome bolete with a deep violet-purple cap and matching stipe, white pores that age pink, and unchanging white flesh. A common oak associate in eastern North America.
Spore print · Pinkish-brown
Common Rustgill
Gilled
An abundant orange-tawny wood-rotter of conifer plantations, identified by its smooth dry cap, yellow gills that become freckled with rust spots, and rusty spore print.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Black Tooth
Toothed
A tough, dark, ground-dwelling toothed fungus with a velvety blue-black cap, a pale rim and grey spines. Unusually for a dark hydnoid, it drops a white spore print.
Spore print · White
Crepidotus crocophyllus
Gilled
A stalkless fan-shaped wood fungus with a whitish cap flecked with tawny-brown scales and distinctive saffron to orange-yellow gills that age brown. It fruits on decaying hardwood.
Spore print · Brown to cinnamon-brown
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
Flame Shield
Gilled
A rare and vivid shield mushroom with a scarlet to orange cap that fades to yellow, free gills turning pink, and a slender pale stem yellowing at the base. It fruits on rotting hardwood.
Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink
Bearded Fieldcap
Gilled
A firm, pale cream fieldcap of grassy places whose cap often cracks in dry weather and hangs shreds of white veil from the margin, giving it a bearded look.
Spore print · Dull brown to snuff brown
Springtime Amanita
Gilled
A spring-fruiting California amanita with a salmon-orange to peach cap, a strongly grooved margin, buff-tinted gills, and a thick sac-like volva. The ring is usually absent.
Spore print · White
Fly Agaric
Gilled
The archetypal storybook mushroom: a scarlet or orange cap sprinkled with white warts, standing on a white stem with a skirt-like ring and a bulbous base ringed by concentric scaly girdles.
Spore print · White
Nameko
Gilled
A small amber-brown East Asian Pholiota famous for the thick clear gelatinous layer coating its cap, growing in clusters on dead hardwood and widely grown on inoculated logs.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Yellow Fieldcap
Gilled
An extremely fragile, short-lived agaric whose slimy egg-yolk yellow cap expands, fades to grey and collapses within a day, leaving a rusty ochre spore print.
Spore print · Rusty ochre-brown
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
Peeling Oysterling
Gilled
A stalkless buff to tan bracket-like gilled fungus on dead hardwood, unique for its gelatinous cap skin that stretches like rubber when peeled back from the margin.
Spore print · Snuff-brown
Cortinarius rubellus
Gilled
A slender foxy-orange webcap of mossy conifer forest, recognised by its sharply umbonate fibrillose cap, thick widely spaced rusty gills and pale yellow bands on the stipe.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Hebeloma mesophaeum
Gilled
A small two-toned Hebeloma with a dark brown cap centre, a paler margin hung with white veil fibrils, and a faint veil zone on the stipe. A pioneer of disturbed and planted ground.
Spore print · Snuff-brown
Golden-edge Bonnet
Gilled
A small conifer-litter bonnet whose dull olive-brown cap hides gills bordered with brilliant orange edges. The orange tone is repeated on the stipe and its basal hairs.
Spore print · White
Egghead Mottlegill
Gilled
A pale, egg-shaped dung fungus with mottled grey-black gills and, unusually for the genus, a distinct membranous ring on a long slender stipe. The cap is often shiny and wrinkled as it dries.
Spore print · Black
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
Silky Pinkgill
Gilled
A common small brown grassland pinkgill with a silky, strongly hygrophanous cap, farinaceous smell and pink spore print.
Spore print · Pink
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)
Piggyback Rosegill
Gilled
A small white silky mushroom with a sac-like volva that grows directly out of the decaying caps of Clouded Funnel. Its free gills turn pink and it is one of the few fungicolous agarics.
Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink