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.
Cedar-Apple Rust
Other Fungi
A rust fungus that alternates between junipers, where it forms brown galls that push out orange gelatinous horns in spring rain, and apples, where it makes bright orange leaf spots.
Spore print · Not applicable
Ceramic Parchment
Crusts
A hard, long-lived crust that breaks into small pale tiles separated by dark cracks, looking exactly like crazed ceramic glaze on bare oak wood.
Spore print · White
Coffee Leaf Rust
Other Fungi
A tropical rust that dusts the undersides of coffee leaves with vivid orange-yellow powder beneath pale translucent spots on the upper surface.
Spore print · Not applicable (bright orange spore masses)
Desert Truffle
Other Fungi
A hypogeous ascomycete of arid steppe that forms pale, smooth-skinned tubers among sun-rose plants, with a reddish-brown gleba veined in white.
Spore print · Not applicable (hypogeous)
Fiery Milkcap
Gilled
A grey-buff milkcap with faint watery zoning and unusually well-spaced ochre-yellow gills, found almost exclusively under hazel. Its white latex dries greyish and its gill spacing sets it apart from other grey milkcaps.
Spore print · Pale cream to pale yellow
Giant Cypress Agaricus
Gilled
A giant west-coast Agaricus of coastal cypress and pine groves, with a heavy brown-scaled cap that can reach 30 cm and a thick, patchy ring. Fruits in the winter rains.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Grass-green Russula
Gilled
An evenly grass-green brittlegill of birch woods, distinguished by its smooth unpatched cap, cream-ochre spore print and rusty spotting on ageing gills.
Spore print · Cream to pale ochre
Grey Shag
Gilled
A tall, fragile inkcap of manure and composted straw, its ovoid grey cap coated in loose woolly veil fibres before it splits, curls and melts away into black ink.
Spore print · Black
Italian White Truffle
Other Fungi
A hypogeous ascomycete with a smooth, velvety pale cream to ochre skin and a pinkish-hazel interior threaded by numerous fine white veins.
Spore print · Not applicable (hypogeous)
Kalahari Truffle
Other Fungi
A southern African desert truffle forming pale sandy-brown underground bodies among dune grasses, betrayed at the surface by small cracks in the sand.
Spore print · Not applicable (hypogeous)
Liberty Cap
Gilled
A small, slender grassland mushroom with a sharply conical cap ending in a distinct nipple, a separable gelatinous cap skin, a wavy thin stem and a dark purple-brown spore print.
Spore print · Dark purple-brown
Myrtle Rust
Other Fungi
A rust of the myrtle family that coats expanding shoots, buds and young leaves in startling egg-yolk yellow spore powder, later leaving grey-brown scarred and distorted tissue.
Spore print · Not applicable (bright yellow spore masses)
Native Bread
Polypores
An Australian polypore whose small funnel-shaped cap rises on a stalk from a large, hard, marbled underground sclerotium buried in forest soil.
Spore print · White
Neonothopanus gardneri
Gilled
A large Brazilian bracket-like agaric that grows from the leaf bases of babassu palms and glows a vivid yellow-green after dark. Its off-centre stipe, funnel-shaped tan cap and strongly decurrent gills are diagnostic.
Spore print · White
Peach Leaf Curl
Other Fungi
A spring-active sac fungus that turns unfolding peach and nectarine leaves into thick, crinkled, red or purple puckered blades. A whitish bloom of spore-bearing cells later coats the distorted surface.
Spore print · Not applicable
Perigord Black Truffle
Other Fungi
A hypogeous ascomycete forming rounded black tubers covered in small pyramidal warts, with a purple-black interior finely marbled by white veins.
Spore print · Not applicable (hypogeous)
Red Cracking Bolete
Boletes
A small woodland bolete whose dull brown cap cracks into a mosaic with pinkish-red flesh showing in the fissures. Yellow pores bruise blue-green and the stipe is red-streaked.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Reindeer Lichen
Other Fungi
A pale ash-grey fruticose lichen forming deep spongy mats of repeatedly forked hollow branches, dominant on tundra, heath and open pine woodland floors.
Spore print · Not applicable
Russet Toughshank
Gilled
One of the commonest litter mushrooms of oak woods: a smooth russet-brown cap on a slim, tough, hollow stem, fruiting in troops for much of the year.
Spore print · White to pale cream
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
Star Rosette Lichen
Other Fungi
A small, neat grey foliose lichen forming star-like rosettes of narrow radiating lobes, usually crowded with black, often frosted apothecia.
Spore print · Not applicable
Sweetbread Mushroom
Gilled
A white, matt, suede-textured woodland mushroom with decurrent gills that turn pink and a strongly farinaceous odour. The pink spore print and running gills are its defining combination.
Spore print · Pink
Termite Mushroom
Gilled
A giant tropical agaric with a sharply umbonate pale cap and a long tapering root that runs down to the fungus comb of a termite colony.
Spore print · Pinkish cream
Tinder Conk
Polypores
An unmistakable hoof-shaped perennial bracket with a hard grey banded crust and a soft brown fibrous interior. It is one of the classic decay fungi of birch and beech across the northern hemisphere.
Spore print · White to pale yellowish
Tree Lungwort
Other Fungi
A large leafy lichen whose deeply ridged and pitted lobes resemble lung tissue, growing on the trunks of veteran broadleaf trees in humid, long-established woodland.
Spore print · Not applicable
Veiled Polypore
Polypores
A small, hard, pale globe or hoof attached to dead conifer bark, unique among polypores in having its pore surface sealed inside a membranous veil pierced by a single small opening.
Spore print · White
Velvet Bolete
Boletes
A stout pine bolete with a dry, velvety orange-ochre cap and small dark cinnamon pores. The pale yellow flesh usually flushes blue where cut.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Winter Stalkball
Puffballs
A miniature stalked puffball with a pea-sized spore sac raised on a slender woody stalk, opening by a small tubular mouth ringed with darker colour. It grows in mossy sand and old mortared walls, mainly in winter.
Spore print · Rusty brown