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 Scaber Stalk

Greencracked Brittlegill

Greencracked Brittlegill

Gilled

An unmistakable brittlegill whose firm green cap breaks up into a mosaic of angular verrucose patches, paired with white brittle gills and a plain white stipe.

Spore print · White

Summer Bolete

Summer Bolete

Boletes

An early-season relative of the porcini with a dry, velvety, often crazed brown cap and a pale net covering the whole length of the stipe. Flesh is white and unchanging.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Coker's Amanita

Coker's Amanita

Gilled

A large, imposing white amanita whose cap is armoured with sharply pointed, downward-curving warts, and whose rooting bulb is ringed with rows of recurved scales.

Spore print · White

Charcoal Burner

Charcoal Burner

Gilled

A common woodland brittlegill with a variably purple, green and slate-grey cap, unique in the genus for gills that are soft, greasy and flexible rather than brittle and shattering.

Spore print · White

Pale Milkcap

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

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

Spectacular Rustgill

Spectacular Rustgill

Gilled

A big, showy orange-tawny agaric that fruits in massive clusters at the base of broadleaf stumps, with a fibrillose scaly cap, ringed stipe and rusty orange spore print.

Spore print · Rusty orange-brown

Greenflush Fibrecap

Greenflush Fibrecap

Gilled

A sturdy pale ochre fibrecap with a distinctive blue-green flush over the cap centre and a sweet aromatic odour. Found on richer soils in broadleaf and mixed woodland.

Spore print · Snuff-brown

Felt-ringed Agaricus

Felt-ringed Agaricus

Gilled

A stout western North American Agaricus recognised by its thick felty ring with cottony patches, pinkish-brown fibrillose cap and yellow-staining bulbous base.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown

Lion Shield

Lion Shield

Gilled

A slender golden-yellow shield mushroom with a velvety wrinkled cap centre, a finely lined margin and free gills that flush pink. It fruits on decaying deciduous wood.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink

Angel's Bonnet

Angel's Bonnet

Gilled

A late-fruiting bonnet with an olive-grey to yellowish cap and a slender stem, growing in tufts on mossy hardwood. Fresh material carries a distinctive iodine-like smell.

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

Fragile Brittlegill

Fragile Brittlegill

Gilled

A small, extremely fragile brittlegill with a variably purple, wine or olive-centred cap. A hand lens reveals finely serrated gill edges, a rare and diagnostic feature.

Spore print · White

Banded Mottlegill

Banded Mottlegill

Gilled

A widespread mottlegill of compost heaps and manured ground, recognised by a hygrophanous reddish-brown cap that dries with a darker band around the margin and a jet-black spore print.

Spore print · Black

Beech Milkcap

Beech Milkcap

Gilled

An abundant beechwood milkcap with a slimy olive-grey cap patterned with dark, droplet-like concentric spots. Its copious white latex dries grey on the gills.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Poplar Fieldcap

Poplar Fieldcap

Gilled

A clustering trunk-dwelling mushroom with a tan cap that wrinkles and cracks with age, cinnamon-brown gills, and a tough pale stem carrying a persistent spore-stained ring.

Spore print · Dull tobacco brown

Gilled Bolete

Gilled Bolete

Boletes

A bolete that wears gills instead of pores: thick, widely spaced, bright golden-yellow blades running down the stipe beneath a dry velvety brown cap.

Spore print · Olive-yellow to yellowish-brown

Gypsy Mushroom

Gypsy Mushroom

Gilled

A sturdy ochre mushroom with a radially wrinkled cap dusted silvery-white over the centre, rusty-brown gills, and the unusual distinction of a true membranous ring on a webcap.

Spore print · Rusty ochre-brown

White Dapperling

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

Rosy Wood Mushroom

Rosy Wood Mushroom

Gilled

A delicate, small-statured Agaricus with pinkish-lilac fibrils over a cream cap and a stipe base that flushes chrome yellow when handled. It fruits in woodland and park litter.

Spore print · Dark brown

Spring Brittlestem

Spring Brittlestem

Gilled

An early-season brittlestem with a smooth date-brown cap that dries to greyish buff and a slender, fragile white stem. It appears in groups on rich soil under broadleaved trees.

Spore print · Dark brown

King Oyster Mushroom

King Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

The heaviest of the oyster mushrooms, with a small greyish-tan cap perched on a thick club-shaped white stem, growing from the dead root crowns of umbellifers in dry grassland.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Common Bonnet

Common Bonnet

Gilled

A tough-stemmed grey-brown bonnet with a radially grooved bell-shaped cap and pink-tinged, cross-veined gills, fruiting in tufts on hardwood stumps for most of the year.

Spore print · White

Lepiota subincarnata

Lepiota subincarnata

Gilled

A small pale dapperling with a flesh-pink to tan cap finely broken into concentric scales, girdled fibres on the lower stem and no true ring, common on mulched garden ground.

Spore print · White