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.
Umbrella Polypore
Polypores
A large branched cluster bearing dozens of small circular grey-brown caps, each with its own central stalk, growing from an underground tuber near hardwood roots.
Spore print · White
Upright Coral
Corals & Clubs
A tan to ochre coral fungus whose narrow branches rise almost perfectly parallel and vertical from a wood-anchored base. White cords at the base and a brownish bruising reaction are typical.
Spore print · Pale yellow to ochre
Variable Oysterling
Gilled
A tiny stalkless white fungus that grows in numbers on the underside of dead twigs and stems, its felted fan-shaped cap paired with a distinctive pale pinkish-brown spore print.
Spore print · Pale pinkish-brown
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
Veiled Lady
Stinkhorns
The most spectacular stinkhorn, with a delicate white lace veil that unfurls from beneath the conical head and may hang almost to the ground. A tropical and subtropical species of rich soil and bamboo litter.
Spore print · Olive-brown (spores in the slimy gleba)
Veiled Oyster
Gilled
A stout, thick-fleshed white oyster with a felty-scaly cap surface and a partial veil that leaves a fringed cap margin or a fleeting ring on the off-centre stipe. It fruits singly or in small groups from wounds on standing hardwoods.
Spore print · White
Veined Cup
Cups & Discs
A broad, almost stalkless brown disc whose inner surface is scored with prominent radiating veins, found on damp ground in spring. A strong chlorine-like odour and the pale, mealy outer surface make it easy to recognise.
Spore print · White to cream
Velvet Brittlegill
Gilled
A firm brittlegill with a dry velvety cap in olive-yellow or violet tones and a white stipe washed with lilac or rose. Both cap and stipe carry a fine powdery bloom.
Spore print · Pale cream
Velvet Milkcap
Gilled
A striking dark chocolate-brown milkcap with a dry velvety, wrinkled cap and startlingly white gills, whose white latex stains the flesh salmon-pink. It grows with spruce and fir in mossy northern and montane conifer forest.
Spore print · Pale yellow to ochre
Velvet Roll-rim
Gilled
A stout, thick-fleshed gilled fungus of conifer stumps, instantly recognised by the dense blackish-brown velvet coating its short, often off-centre stipe.
Spore print · Pale yellow-brown
Velvet Rollrim
Gilled
A robust brown mushroom of conifer stumps with a suede-textured inrolled cap, decurrent forking gills that peel away from the flesh, and a thick stem clad in dark brown-black velvet.
Spore print · Yellowish-brown
Velvet Shank
Gilled
A tufted orange-capped mushroom with a slimy cap and a distinctive dark, velvety stem base, fruiting on hardwood stumps in the coldest months. The contrast between the bright cap and near-black stem is the giveaway.
Spore print · White
Velvet Shield
Gilled
A handsome dark shield mushroom with a network of raised brown veins and scales across the cap and gills edged in a distinct dark brown fringe. It grows on decaying hardwood.
Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink
Verdigris Agaric
Gilled
A striking woodland roundhead with a slimy verdigris blue-green cap flecked with white veil scales at the margin, a scaly ringed stem and gills that mature to purple-brown.
Spore print · Purple-brown
Vermilion Waxcap
Gilled
A very small scarlet waxcap whose dry cap is minutely scurfy under a lens, with orange-red gills that run slightly down a smooth red stem.
Spore print · White
Vinegar Cup
Cups & Discs
A deep brown goblet-shaped cup whose pale, branching ribs run up from a stout base far onto the outside of the bowl. It fruits in spring on lime-rich soil at woodland edges and along paths.
Spore print · White
Violet Coral
Corals & Clubs
An unmistakable amethyst to magenta-violet coral fungus forming small tufts of blunt-tipped branches in old grassland and mossy woodland. Its intense colour is unmatched among temperate corals.
Spore print · White
Violet Fairy Cup
Cups & Discs
A small violet to purple-lilac cup fungus that colonises burnt ground, old campfire scars and charcoal-rich soil.
Spore print · White
Violet Webcap
Gilled
A large, sombre, dark violet woodland mushroom with a dry felty cap, violet gills that rust over with maturity, and a cobwebby veil linking cap margin to stem.
Spore print · Rusty brown
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
Violet-toothed Polypore
Polypores
Thin, flexible brackets massed in rows along dead hardwood, recognised by an underside that is violet when fresh and breaks up into ragged teeth with age.
Spore print · White
Viscid Violet Cort
Gilled
A slimy violet-capped webcap of eastern North American oak woods that develops pale yellowish spots and streaks as it ages. The viscid stem and rusty spore print confirm the genus.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Waxy Crust
Crusts
A translucent, waxy-gelatinous layer that develops under the bark of dead oak branches, splitting and rolling the bark back to reveal itself on bare wood.
Spore print · White
Weeping Bolete
Boletes
A slippery cinnamon-brown bolete of pine woods whose pale yellow pores exude milky droplets in humid weather, giving it its name. The ringless stalk is dusted with fine brown granular dots.
Spore print · Cinnamon-brown
Weeping Polypore
Polypores
A massive lumpy bracket at the foot of oak trees, unmistakable when young for the beads of amber liquid that stand all over its buff upper surface.
Spore print · Whitish to pale yellow
Weeping Widow
Gilled
A shaggy tawny-brown grassland mushroom whose blackening gills bead with dark droplets in humid weather. The hairy cap, veil-fringed margin and near-black spore print make it distinctive.
Spore print · Very dark brown to blackish
Western Black Elfin Saddle
Cups & Discs
The stout western counterpart of the black elfin saddle, with a large charcoal saddle-shaped head on a thick, deeply chambered pale grey stalk. It fruits in conifer duff along the Pacific coast and inland mountains.
Spore print · White
Western Destroying Angel
Gilled
An all-white springtime Amanita of western oak woodland, with free white gills, a thin skirt-like ring and a sac-like membranous volva at the buried stem base.
Spore print · White
Western Gall Rust
Other Fungi
A rust of hard pines that swells branches into round woody galls which split each spring and release clouds of bright orange spores.
Spore print · Not applicable (orange spore masses)
Western Giant Puffball
Puffballs
A very large white puffball of dry western rangeland, its surface broken into a mosaic of flattened polygonal warts. The interior is uniformly white when young and turns to olive-brown powder with age.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Western Jack-O'-Lantern
Gilled
A clustered orange mushroom flushed with distinctive olive-green tones, with long-decurrent orange gills that glow faintly green in darkness, fruiting from oak stumps and roots on the Pacific coast.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
Wet Rot Fungus
Crusts
A thin, closely attached crust that starts creamy white and matures to olive- or umber-brown, its surface roughened with small warts and lumps. It grows on persistently wet dead wood outdoors and on damp timber indoors.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Wheat Stem Rust
Other Fungi
The classic cereal rust, forming ragged brick-red pustules along wheat stems that turn coal-black late in the season, with orange cluster-cups on barberry in spring.
Spore print · Not applicable (rusty red spore masses)
White Birch Bolete
Boletes
A ghostly pale scaber stalk of wet birch bogs, almost white overall with soft watery flesh and a faint greenish tinge to the cap and stem base.
Spore print · Pale snuff-brown
White Brain
Jellies
A translucent white to greyish jelly that spreads along dead hardwood branches as glistening cushions which merge into folded, brain-like ridges.
Spore print · White
White Button Mushroom
Gilled
The familiar rounded white Agaricus with free gills that shift from pale pink to dark brown and a soft ring on the stipe. Wild forms grow on rich, composted or manured ground rather than on wood.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
White Chanterelle
Gilled
A stout, chalk-white chanterelle of western North American conifer forests, with blunt decurrent ridges instead of gills and flesh that stains rusty orange wherever it is touched.
Spore print · White
White Cheese Polypore
Polypores
A soft, moist, pure white annual bracket with a finely downy cap and minute white pores, drying to a light chalky-white shelf on dead hardwood.
Spore print · White
White Coral
Corals & Clubs
A delicate, chalk-white coral that branches repeatedly into fine upright arms with blunt tips. Grows from soil and litter in woodland and mossy clearings.
Spore print · White
White Coral Jelly
Jellies
A cluster of thin, translucent white gelatinous lobes that fan out from dead branches like a frozen flower or a piece of crumpled tissue. Its near-colourless, seaweed-like fronds set it apart from every other jelly fungus.
Spore print · White
White Dapperling
Gilled
A clean white grassland mushroom with a smooth unscaled cap, free gills that flush pale pink with age, a movable ring and a slightly swollen base without any sac.
Spore print · White to faintly pinkish
White Dunce Cap
Gilled
An extremely fragile white to cream conical mushroom of lawns that appears overnight and often collapses by midday, with rusty ochre spores.
Spore print · Rusty ochre-brown
White Fibrecap
Gilled
A small, silky, ivory-white fibrecap with a sharp central point and gills that age from white to dull clay-brown. Common along shaded woodland paths from midsummer onwards.
Spore print · Snuff-brown
White King Bolete
Boletes
A pale, almost white-capped king bolete of the American Southwest, growing with ponderosa pine and oak. Whitish stipe with a fine white net and unchanging white flesh.
Spore print · Olive-brown
White Pine Blister Rust
Other Fungi
A two-host rust that raises orange, blister-like sacs on the bark of five-needle pines and clothes currant leaf undersides with yellow pustules and hair-like brown columns.
Spore print · Not applicable (orange-yellow spore masses)
White Saddle
Cups & Discs
An unmistakable pale ascomycete whose crumpled, saddle-shaped cream head sits on a tall stalk deeply carved into ribs and pockets. It favours the disturbed soil of woodland paths and verges under beech and other broadleaf trees.
Spore print · White
White Spindles
Corals & Clubs
Clusters of slender, brittle, pure white unbranched clubs that grow in tight tufts among moss and short grass. They snap at the slightest pressure, giving the species its name.
Spore print · White
White-egg Bird's Nest
Other Fungi
A squat, crucible-shaped little cup, tawny-ochre and felty outside with a smooth pale interior, holding neat white disc-shaped 'eggs'. The white peridioles set it apart from the grey and black ones of Cyathus.
Spore print · Not applicable (spores held in peridioles)