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 “Chicken of the Woods”
Common Powderhorn Lichen
Other Fungi
A Cladonia of tree bases and rotting stumps whose slender grey-green podetia taper to blunt points and are coated in fine flour-like soredia, rarely forming cups.
Spore print · Not applicable
Alder Scalycap
Gilled
A tufted lemon-yellow Pholiota of wet woodland that grows on alder and birch stumps, with a smooth slightly sticky cap, sweetish scent and clay-brown spore print.
Spore print · Clay-brown to rust-brown
Crab Brittlegill
Gilled
A robust brittlegill with a dark wine-red cap, ochre gills and a stipe flushed pink that browns wherever it is handled, accompanied by a strong smell of shellfish.
Spore print · Ochre
Bearded Milkcap
Gilled
A small pale milkcap of sandy birch ground, recognised by its almost unzoned whitish-pink cap, finely downy inrolled margin and unchanging white latex.
Spore print · Cream
Golden Chanterelle
Gilled
A golden-yellow funnel-shaped fungus with blunt forking ridges instead of true gills running down a solid tapering stem, and a distinctive apricot-like scent.
Spore print · Pale yellow to cream
Chaga
Polypores
A black, deeply cracked sterile mass that erupts from living birch trunks like a lump of charcoal, revealing bright rusty-orange interior tissue when broken.
Spore print · Pale brown (from hidden fertile crust)
Powdered Ruffle Lichen
Other Fungi
A large pale grey lichen with broad ruffled lobes, black eyelash-like cilia along the edges and dense white soredia rimming the wavy margins.
Spore print · Not applicable
Red Banded Webcap
Gilled
A large brick-coloured birch webcap, instantly known by the two to five bright cinnabar-red belts wrapped around its stout club-shaped stipe.
Spore print · Rusty brown
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
Split Porecrust
Polypores
An extremely common white to cream resupinate polypore whose pores split and fray, becoming maze-like and finally tooth-like towards the centre.
Spore print · White
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
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
Juniper-Hawthorn Rust
Other Fungi
A two-host rust fungus that forms small brown galls with orange jelly horns on juniper in spring, then orange leaf spots with tubular outgrowths on hawthorn.
Spore print · Not applicable
Honey Waxcap
Gilled
A medium orange waxcap with a dry matt cap, pale orange decurrent-toothed gills and a distinct honey odour that becomes obvious as the fruit body dries.
Spore print · White
Hooded Tube Lichen
Other Fungi
A pale grey foliose lichen with puffed, hollow, tube-like lobes whose tips turn up and split open to release powdery soredia from the underside.
Spore print · Not applicable
Red-mouth Bolete
Boletes
An eastern North American red-pored bolete with a velvety brown cap, dark red pores that flash blue at a touch, and coarse dark red hairs clothing the stipe base.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Brown Roll-rim
Gilled
A dull ochre-brown mushroom with a persistently inrolled, felty cap margin and decurrent gills that bruise dark brown and peel away from the cap flesh.
Spore print · Yellow-brown to sienna
Wrinkled Peach
Gilled
An unmistakable rubbery-fleshed mushroom whose apricot to salmon cap is embossed with a raised network of pale ridges, growing on dead elm and other decaying hardwood.
Spore print · Pink
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
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
Tuberous Polypore
Polypores
A stout stalked polypore with a scaly ochre cap, fringed margin and large white decurrent pores, often arising from a hard, stone-like underground mass of soil-bound mycelium.
Spore print · White
St. George's Mushroom
Gilled
A thick, cream-coloured spring grassland mushroom with crowded white gills, a stout ringless stipe and a strong mealy odour. It often grows in arcs and rings along hedge banks and downland turf.
Spore print · White
Bulbous Honey Fungus
Gilled
A honey fungus of deciduous woodland recognised by its distinctly swollen club-shaped stipe base, fine yellowish cap scales and fragile cobwebby yellow-fringed ring.
Spore print · White
Devil's Cigar
Cups & Discs
A rare, cigar-shaped fungus that splits lengthwise into four to seven leathery rays, exposing a pale spore-bearing interior. It is known only from a few counties in Texas and from parts of Japan.
Spore print · White