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 “Common Earthball”
Parasitic Bolete
Boletes
A small olive-yellow bolete that grows nowhere except attached to the base of a common earthball, usually with several fruitbodies clustered around a single host.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Earthfan
Other Fungi
A tough, fibrous fungus forming overlapping rust- to chocolate-brown fans and rosettes on sandy ground, with a pale fringed edge and a warty, purplish-brown underside. It is a familiar sight around young pines on heathland and in nurseries.
Spore print · Purple-brown
Hebeloma crustuliniforme
Gilled
A pale clay-coloured woodland mushroom with crowded brown-maturing gills whose edges bead with droplets in humid weather, and a strong radish-like odour.
Spore print · Snuff-brown
Scaly Rustgill
Gilled
A small to medium tawny-yellow woodland mushroom of conifer debris, with a finely scaly cap, yellow gills that rust with age, and a bright rusty spore print.
Spore print · Rusty orange-brown
Parasol Mushroom
Gilled
One of the largest European grassland agarics, recognised by its drumstick-shaped young form, shaggy brown cap scales and a snakeskin-patterned stem carrying a thick, movable double ring.
Spore print · White
Northern Milkcap
Gilled
A large, greasy grey-violet milkcap of northern birch and spruce forests, with white latex that dries greyish or greenish on the pale gills. It is one of the most abundant Lactarius species in Fennoscandia and the boreal belt.
Spore print · Pale cream to pale yellow
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
Dog Lichen
Other Fungi
A large foliose lichen with broad grey-brown lobes, a downy upper surface, and a white veined underside bearing long shaggy rhizines.
Spore print · Not applicable
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
Ochre Brittlegill
Gilled
One of the most abundant woodland brittlegills, with a plain dull ochre-yellow cap, pale cream gills and a white stipe that greys distinctly with age and wet weather.
Spore print · Pale cream
Split Gill
Gilled
A small, tough, hairy white fan growing sideways from dead wood, with gill-like folds split lengthwise down the middle that curl open and shut with the weather.
Spore print · White
Lilac Bonnet
Gilled
A litter-dwelling bonnet with a lilac, violet or pinkish cap, broad widely spaced gills and a strong radish smell. Colour varies widely, so the odour and gill structure matter more than the shade.
Spore print · White
Yellow Morel
Morels & Allies
A spring ascomycete with a pale tan to yellow-ochre honeycombed head, its pits irregular and its ridges paler than the pits. Head and stalk are joined at the base and the whole fruiting body is hollow from tip to foot.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
Grisette
Gilled
A slender grey Amanita with a strongly grooved cap margin, free white gills, no ring at all, and a tall white membranous sac enclosing the stem base.
Spore print · White
Pale Brittlestem
Gilled
A fragile, pale-capped clustering mushroom with a toothed veil fringe on the cap edge, gills that shift from white through grey to purple-brown, and a brittle hollow white stem.
Spore print · Purple-brown
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
Gem-studded Puffball
Puffballs
A small white to buff puffball shaped like an inverted pear, covered in detachable cone-shaped spines that leave a net-like pattern of scars when they fall. It releases spores through a neat apical pore in the top of the head.
Spore print · Olive-brown (spore mass)
Black Morel
Morels & Allies
A conical spring morel whose pits are arranged in vertical ladder-like rows between ridges that darken to grey, olive or black. Like all true morels it is hollow throughout with the head fused to the stalk.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
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
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
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
Corn Smut
Other Fungi
A smut fungus that turns maize kernels, tassels and leaves into swollen silvery-grey galls which rupture to release masses of sooty black spores. It occurs wherever maize is grown.
Spore print · Not applicable
Brown Birch Bolete
Boletes
The commonest of the scaber stalks, a tall grey-brown bolete of birch woodland with a slender stem roughened by dark scaly tufts.
Spore print · Snuff-brown
Eyelash Cup
Cups & Discs
A miniature orange-red disc fungus rimmed with stiff black hairs like eyelashes, growing in troops on wet rotting wood and damp ground.
Spore print · Whitish