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

Slender Parasol

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

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

Contrary Webcap

Contrary Webcap

Gilled

A stout conifer webcap whose warm orange-tawny cap contrasts sharply with brilliant violet-blue young gills and a thick white club-shaped stem. Rusty brown spores overtake the blue with age.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Ear-pick Fungus

Ear-pick Fungus

Toothed

A miniature dark brown toothed fungus with a kidney-shaped hairy cap on a slender side-attached stalk, growing directly from decaying pine cones. Its shape recalls an old-fashioned ear-pick.

Spore print · White

Blue Spot Knight

Blue Spot Knight

Gilled

A silky, pure white woodland knight whose cap and stipe base develop distinctive blue-green or pinkish spots and streaks with age. The white sinuate gills and complete absence of a volva place it firmly in Tricholoma.

Spore print · White

Turf Mottlegill

Turf Mottlegill

Gilled

A small greyish mottlegill of dunged pasture and manured turf, with a hemispherical hygrophanous cap, mottled blackening gills and a slender fragile stipe.

Spore print · Black

Shield Pinkgill

Gilled

A spring-fruiting pinkgill of hedgerows and orchards, with a grey-brown shield-shaped cap and a strict association with rose-family shrubs and trees.

Spore print · Pink

Petticoat Mottlegill

Petticoat Mottlegill

Gilled

A tall, slim dung mushroom with a grey bell-shaped cap edged in white veil fragments and strongly mottled black gills.

Spore print · Black

Livid Pinkgill

Livid Pinkgill

Gilled

The largest European pinkgill, with a stout ivory-grey cap, gills that turn from yellowish to salmon-pink, and a strong farinaceous odour.

Spore print · Pink

Deadly Galerina

Deadly Galerina

Gilled

A small brown wood-dwelling mushroom with a hygrophanous tawny cap, a membranous ring on a smooth stem, and a rusty-brown spore print.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Mild Milkcap

Mild Milkcap

Gilled

A small, abundant reddish-brown milkcap of beech litter with a dry unzoned cap, crowded pale gills and copious white latex that dries whey-like on the gills. It often fruits in large troops beneath mature beech.

Spore print · Cream to pale buff

Frayed Parasol

Frayed Parasol

Gilled

A medium-sized pale parasol of open pasture whose cap cuticle splits and peels back at the edge, leaving a characteristically frayed, ragged margin over white flesh. Its stem is plain whitish with no snakeskin pattern.

Spore print · White

Purple Brittlegill

Purple Brittlegill

Gilled

A common brittlegill with a deep purple cap darkening almost to black at the centre, cream gills and a firm white stipe that ages dirty grey.

Spore print · Pale cream

Flaming Scalycap

Flaming Scalycap

Gilled

A brilliant golden-yellow scalycap covered in pointed sulphur-yellow scales on both cap and stipe, fruiting on mossy conifer stumps and logs.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Garlic Parachute

Garlic Parachute

Gilled

A slender beech-litter mushroom with a pale hygrophanous cap on a disproportionately long, velvety blackish rooting stem, and an unmistakable strong garlic smell.

Spore print · White

Bruising Webcap

Bruising Webcap

Gilled

A robust webcap with a slimy streaky olive-brown cap whose violet gills and flesh flush deep purple wherever they are rubbed or cut.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Dingy Twiglet

Dingy Twiglet

Gilled

A small, sombre olive-brown woodland mushroom with a finely velvety cap and a pale frosted gill edge, fruiting on fallen deciduous branches.

Spore print · Olive-brown to snuff brown

Yellowfoot Dapperling

Yellowfoot Dapperling

Gilled

A slim woodland dapperling with a shaggy ochre-brown scaly cap and a stem sheathed below the ring in loose yellow woolly veil, brightest toward the base. Its large spindle-shaped spores give the species its name.

Spore print · White

Sulphur Knight

Sulphur Knight

Gilled

A medium-sized woodland knight with an unmistakable sulphur-yellow cap, gills and stipe, and a powerful coal-gas odour. The colour runs right through the flesh, which separates it from most other yellow-tinted Tricholoma species.

Spore print · White

Powdery Piggyback

Powdery Piggyback

Gilled

A small parasitic mushroom that grows on decaying blackening brittlegills, its rounded white cap soon breaking into a brown powdery mass of asexual spores.

Spore print · White, rarely produced

Mousepee Pinkgill

Mousepee Pinkgill

Gilled

A small grassland pinkgill with an olive-brown cap and a startling blue-green stipe that bruises deeper green, plus a pungent mouse-like smell.

Spore print · Pink

Orange Pinwheel

Orange Pinwheel

Gilled

A vivid rusty-orange miniature with a pleated, umbrella-like cap held on a wiry blackish thread of a stem, scattered through damp hardwood litter.

Spore print · White

Panaeolus olivaceus

Panaeolus olivaceus

Gilled

A small, easily overlooked grassland mottlegill with an olive-tinged hygrophanous cap that often wrinkles as it dries, mottled darkening gills and a black spore print.

Spore print · Black

Pink Oyster

Pink Oyster

Gilled

A tropical oyster mushroom forming shelved rosettes of bright salmon-pink fan-shaped caps with deeply decurrent gills, fading to buff with age.

Spore print · White to pale pinkish lilac