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 “Giant puffball”
Agaricus crocodilinus
Gilled
A very large white meadow Agaricus whose dry cap cracks into flat plates like crocodile skin. It fruits in coastal grassland and pasture, chiefly in western North America.
Spore print · Dark brown
Potato Earthball
Puffballs
A pale, almost smooth earthball that looks like a small buried potato, with a thin rind that cracks into fine scurfy patches. The interior ripens from white to a purple-brown dust.
Spore print · Purple-brown to blackish (spore mass)
Termite Mushroom
Gilled
A giant tropical agaric with a sharply umbonate pale cap and a long tapering root that runs down to the fungus comb of a termite colony.
Spore print · Pinkish cream
Dead Man's Foot
Puffballs
A large, club- or foot-shaped fungus whose interior is packed with pea-sized chambers set in dark jelly, ripening from the top down into rusty brown dust. It grows on the poorest, most compacted ground.
Spore print · Cinnamon to rusty brown (spore mass)
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
Thick-footed Morel
Morels & Allies
The traditional name for the largest yellow morels, distinguished by a swollen, deeply furrowed and chambered stalk base beneath a broad ochre honeycomb cap. Specimens can exceed 25 cm in height.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
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
Macro Mushroom
Gilled
One of the largest white meadow Agaricus species, with a thick cracking cap that can exceed 25 cm and an unusually massive, felty ring. A grassland decomposer of long-established, lightly managed pasture.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Sandy Stiltball
Puffballs
A striking fungus with a tall, woody, shaggily scaled stalk rising from a buried sac-like volva and topped by a flattened disc of rusty-brown spore powder. It grows on dry, sandy, nutrient-poor soil.
Spore print · Rusty brown