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 Deadly Cortinar

Yellow Webcap

Gilled

A slimy-capped webcap in warm ochre-yellow, distinguished by pale bluish-violet young gills and a bluish stem apex above a glutinous, banded stem. Common with birch on damp acid soils.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Splendid Webcap

Gilled

A vivid sulphur- to chrome-yellow webcap with a viscid cap, yellow gills and a sharply rimmed bulbous stem base. It grows with beech on calcareous soils in warm southern woodland.

Spore print · Rusty 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

Bloodred Webcap

Gilled

A small webcap coloured deep blood-red throughout, cap, gills and stipe alike, fruiting among mosses in damp spruce and pine forest.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Cinnamon Webcap

Gilled

A small slender webcap with a silky cinnamon-brown cap, crowded saffron to golden-yellow gills and a yellow-olive stipe, fruiting in mossy conifer woodland.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Pearly Webcap

Gilled

A pale silvery-violet webcap of broadleaf woodland with a silky, pearl-sheened cap and a club-shaped stipe wrapped in a whitish veil sheath.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Surprise Webcap

Gilled

A drab olive-brown webcap of sandy conifer ground that hides vivid blood-red gills beneath an unremarkable cap, hence the name.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Star Earthball

Puffballs

A large, hard earthball that develops underground and then bursts upward, tearing its thick rind into stiff pale rays like a clenched hand opening. The exposed spore mass inside is dark brown.

Spore print · Dark brown to blackish (spore mass)

Horn of Plenty

Other Fungi

A thin-fleshed, hollow, grey-black trumpet that grows in dense troops among leaf litter. Its funnel shape, near-smooth outer surface and lack of any true gills make it distinctive.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Porcelain Fungus

Gilled

Glistening white, almost translucent caps coated in thick slime, clustered high on dead and dying beech, with a distinct ring on the slender white stem.

Spore print · White

Destructive Pholiota

Gilled

A large, heavy-bodied scalycap of dead poplar wood, covered in soft white cottony veil patches with a stout woolly stipe and rusty brown spores.

Spore print · Rusty brown

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

Crystal Brain

Jellies

A watery, near-transparent jelly whose lobes are speckled with minute opaque white grains, giving it a distinctive frogspawn-like appearance on damp dead hardwood.

Spore print · White

Blue Cheese Polypore

Blue Cheese Polypore

Polypores

A small, soft, hairy white bracket that develops distinct blue-grey tints, especially on the pore surface and where bruised, growing in tiers on dead conifer wood.

Spore print · Pale bluish white

Purple Jellydisc

Jellies

Clusters of rubbery reddish-purple blobs and shallow discs crowding dead beech stumps, alternating between a lumpy asexual form and neat spore-bearing cups.

Spore print · White

Split Gill

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

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

Turkey Tail

Turkey Tail

Polypores

A thin, tough, fan-shaped bracket banded in concentric zones of contrasting colour and texture, growing in overlapping tiers and rosettes on dead hardwood. The underside is a fine white pore surface.

Spore print · White

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

Hericium abietis

Toothed

The largest of the western toothed corals, forming cream-white branched masses on dead conifer wood. It is the conifer counterpart of the hardwood-loving Hericium species and can reach the size of a football or larger.

Spore print · White

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

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

Coral Tooth Fungus

Toothed

A delicately branched white fungus whose thin arms carry short spines in neat rows along their undersides. It grows on dead broadleaf wood and looks like a piece of white marine coral fixed to a log.

Spore print · White

Glue Crust

Crusts

A thin grey-brown crust on hazel, famous for cementing a dead branch to a living one so that it stays suspended in the canopy.

Spore print · White