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 “Not a mushroom/fungus”
Late Fall Oyster
Gilled
A cold-weather bracket with an olive to yellow-green tacky cap, crowded orange-yellow gills and a short stubby lateral stipe, fruiting on hardwood logs after most other mushrooms have finished.
Spore print · White to pale yellowish
Tear Dropper
Crusts
A thin, closely attached crust fungus on dead conifer wood whose cream to pale ochre surface is roughened with fine spines and often beaded with clear droplets when fresh. It is one of the small resupinate fungi easiest to name by that weeping habit.
Spore print · White
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
Black Trumpet
Other Fungi
A thin, hollow, vase-shaped fungus in dark grey to almost black, with a smooth or faintly wrinkled outer fertile surface and no true gills. It grows in dense troops in deep leaf litter, where its colouring makes it remarkably hard to see.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Woolly Milkcap
Gilled
A pink, concentrically banded birch milkcap with a heavily inrolled, shaggily woolly cap margin and copious white latex that does not change colour.
Spore print · Cream
Soapy Knight
Gilled
A highly variable woodland knight with a greenish-grey cap, widely spaced notched gills and flesh that flushes pinkish where cut, especially in the stipe base.
Spore print · White
Oakbug Milkcap
Gilled
An abundant oak-associated milkcap with a dull cinnamon-brown, faintly banded cap and a heavy oily odour. Its creamy white latex does not change colour but dries brownish on the gills.
Spore print · Pale cream with pinkish tint
Grey Spotted Amanita
Gilled
A robust European amanita with a grey-brown cap bearing flat grey veil patches, a grooved pendulous ring, and a swollen, grey-banded stem base that is not sharply rimmed.
Spore print · White
Iodine Bolete
Boletes
A pale, dry-capped bolete of warm oak woodland with lemon-yellow pores that do not blue and a stipe base whose flesh carries a distinctive iodoform-like odour.
Spore print · Olive-brown
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
Winter Polypore
Polypores
A small, tough, centrally stalked polypore with a dull grey-brown velvety cap and fine white decurrent pores, notable for fruiting in the cold months when little else is out.
Spore print · White
Curry Milkcap
Gilled
A small dark chestnut-brown milkcap with a tiny pointed umbo and a powerful spicy, curry-like aroma that intensifies as the fruitbody dries. Its watery white latex does not change colour.
Spore print · Pale cream
Pale Milkcap
Gilled
A plain, pale pinkish-buff milkcap of beech woods with a smooth, slightly greasy cap, crowded pale gills and copious white latex that does not change colour. Its very lack of markings is its most useful field character.
Spore print · Pale cream
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
Berkeley's Polypore
Polypores
One of the largest fungi of eastern North American forests, forming a massive rosette of thick cream to tan fans with coarse angular pores at the base of oaks.
Spore print · White
Common Jellyspot
Jellies
Minute orange-yellow jelly blobs scattered in numbers over damp dead wood and old fence posts, among the most frequently encountered of all small fungi.
Spore print · Whitish to pale yellow
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
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
Red-belted Conk
Polypores
A tough perennial bracket recognised by a shiny resinous crust banded in red-orange with a cream to white growing edge, and a hard white context. It is among the most abundant decay fungi of conifer logs in northern forests.
Spore print · White
Hemlock Varnish Shelf
Polypores
A shiny, varnish-coated bracket with a mahogany-red upper surface and creamy white pore layer, fruiting almost exclusively on dead eastern hemlock. Its lacquered finish and conifer substrate make it one of the most recognisable shelf fungi of northern forests.
Spore print · Brown
Beech Jellydisc
Jellies
Translucent, gelatinous pinkish-buff discs crowded together on fallen beech wood, often forming knobbly cushions. The soft rubbery texture and pale lilac tint distinguish it from darker jelly fungi.
Spore print · White
Pig's Ears
Cups & Discs
A large reddish-brown ascomycete that begins as a deep cup and flattens into a wrinkled, ear-like saucer on decaying conifer wood. Its short ribbed stub of a stalk and pale, scurfy underside separate it from the true cup fungi.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Agarikon
Polypores
A large, chalky white, hoof-shaped to column-like perennial bracket found high on old-growth conifers. Its soft, crumbly white interior and cracked outer surface set it apart from every other large conk.
Spore print · White
Angel Wings
Gilled
A thin, pure white, stalkless fan that grows in crowded troops on decaying conifer wood, with narrow crowded gills radiating from a pinched point of attachment.
Spore print · White