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 “Fairy Ring Mushroom”
Salt-loving Agaricus
Gilled
A dense, thick-fleshed white Agaricus of salty ground, with a cap that cracks into coarse patches, reddening flesh, a sheathing ring and a briny odour.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Fly Agaric
Gilled
The archetypal storybook mushroom: a scarlet or orange cap sprinkled with white warts, standing on a white stem with a skirt-like ring and a bulbous base ringed by concentric scaly girdles.
Spore print · White
The Prince
Gilled
One of the largest field mushrooms, with a squarish young cap patterned in fine golden-brown fibrous scales, a big pendulous ring and flesh that yellows slowly where handled. It smells strongly of almonds.
Spore print · Dark brown
Pioppino
Gilled
A clustered wood-dwelling mushroom with a wrinkled tan cap, a firm white stipe bearing a persistent ring, and gills that darken from whitish to tobacco brown. It grows in tiers on poplar and other soft hardwoods.
Spore print · Tobacco brown
Matsutake
Gilled
A dense, heavy, white-fleshed woodland mushroom overlaid with cinnamon-brown fibrous scales, carrying a thick flaring ring and a strongly aromatic odour, fruiting in arcs beneath pine.
Spore print · White
Honey Fungus
Gilled
A clustered, honey-coloured woodland mushroom with a shaggy ring, white spore print and black bootlace-like rhizomorphs running under bark. It is one of the most significant tree-root parasites in temperate forests.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Veiled Oyster
Gilled
A stout, thick-fleshed white oyster with a felty-scaly cap surface and a partial veil that leaves a fringed cap margin or a fleeting ring on the off-centre stipe. It fruits singly or in small groups from wounds on standing hardwoods.
Spore print · White
California Agaricus
Gilled
A common lawn and garden Agaricus of the Pacific coast, with a pale silky cap, a flaring patch-bearing ring and pale greyish rather than bright pink young gills.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
American Matsutake
Gilled
A heavy white mushroom with cinnamon-stained cap fibrils, notched white gills and a thick sheathing ring, pushing up through sandy conifer duff. Its powerful spicy aroma is unmistakable in the field.
Spore print · White
Straw Mushroom
Gilled
A tropical decomposer that emerges as a dark egg wrapped in a membrane, then expands to a grey-brown cap on a ringless stipe seated in a sac-like volva. Its gills turn pink and the spore print is salmon.
Spore print · Salmon pink
Stubble Rosegill
Gilled
A large greasy-capped mushroom of disturbed rich ground, with free gills that turn deep salmon pink and a stipe seated in a conspicuous white sac-like volva but with no ring at all.
Spore print · Salmon pink
Pholiotina rugosa
Gilled
A small rusty-spored mushroom of mulch and lawns with a tawny wrinkled cap and, unlike the true conecaps, a distinct movable membranous ring on the slender stipe.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Silky Rosegill
Gilled
A tall pale mushroom of compost and cultivated ground with a slightly greasy grey cap, free gills that turn salmon pink, no ring, and a large white sac at the stem base.
Spore print · Pink to salmon pink
Wine Cap
Gilled
A large mulch-bed mushroom with a wine-red cap fading to tan, purple-grey gills, and an unmistakable thick white ring whose upper surface splits into radiating cogwheel spokes.
Spore print · Dark purple-brown to purple-black
Giant Funnel
Gilled
A massive white funnel-shaped mushroom of open grassland that forms huge fairy rings, with tough flesh and very crowded decurrent gills.
Spore print · White
Flowerpot Parasol
Gilled
A slender, brilliant sulphur-yellow mushroom that appears overnight in the pots of houseplants and in greenhouse beds, with a powdery pleated cap and a fragile ringed stem. It collapses within a day, often before anyone notices it opened.
Spore print · White
Trooping Funnel
Gilled
A tall, large pale buff funnel that forms sweeping troops and fairy rings along woodland edges, keeping a distinct central bump in the funnel.
Spore print · White
Deadly Galerina
Gilled
A small brown wood-dwelling mushroom with a hygrophanous tawny cap, a membranous ring on a smooth stem, and a rusty-brown spore print.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Golden Bootleg
Gilled
A large and striking golden-ochre mushroom of nutrient-rich waste ground, coated in a fine granular powder and carrying a big flaring ring on a sheathed, boot-like stem.
Spore print · Ochre-brown
Field Blewit
Gilled
A stout grassland mushroom with a plain buff cap set on a striking blue-violet streaked stipe, fruiting in rings in old pasture after the first frosts.
Spore print · Pale pink
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
Funeral Bell
Gilled
A small, strongly hygrophanous honey-brown mushroom of rotting wood, identified by rusty brown spores, a thin membranous ring dusted rust by falling spores, and clustered growth on logs.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Sheathed Woodtuft
Gilled
A tufted stump mushroom whose hygrophanous cap dries in two tones from the centre out, above a narrow ring and a stem clad below in coarse dark upturned scales.
Spore print · Ochre-brown to cinnamon brown
Shaggy Ink Cap
Gilled
A tall, white, cylindrical mushroom clothed in shaggy upturned scales, whose gills pass from white through pink to black before dissolving into inky liquid. The movable ring and black spore print are confirming features.
Spore print · Black