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 Golden Oyster

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

Golden Scruffy Collybia

Golden Scruffy Collybia

Gilled

A small, brilliant orange-yellow woodland mushroom whose cap is studded with pointed, granular scales, contrasting with widely spaced white gills on a shaggy yellow stalk.

Spore print · White

Pacific Golden Chanterelle

Gilled

The large golden funnel-capped chanterelle of Pacific Northwest conifer forests, with blunt forking ridges instead of true gills running down a tapering stem. Its cap surface is finely fibrillose, often with a pinkish or brownish cast.

Spore print · Pale yellow to cream

Golden-Eye Lichen

Golden-Eye Lichen

Other Fungi

A small, shrubby orange lichen on twigs, distinguished by bright orange apothecia rimmed with hair-like cilia that give it an eyelashed, eye-like look.

Spore print · Not applicable

California Golden Chanterelle

Gilled

The largest chanterelle known, producing massive golden-orange fruit bodies under California's coast live oaks. Its sheer bulk, thick white flesh and blunt forking ridges make it unmistakable in its range.

Spore print · Pale yellow to cream

Golden-edge Bonnet

Gilled

A small conifer-litter bonnet whose dull olive-brown cap hides gills bordered with brilliant orange edges. The orange tone is repeated on the stipe and its basal hairs.

Spore print · White

Peeling Oysterling

Gilled

A stalkless buff to tan bracket-like gilled fungus on dead hardwood, unique for its gelatinous cap skin that stretches like rubber when peeled back from the margin.

Spore print · Snuff-brown

Flat Oysterling

Gilled

A small, white to buff, flattened fan-shaped bracket on rotting hardwood, whose brown spore print and finely lined, radiating gills separate it from all the white-spored oyster relatives.

Spore print · Pale brown

Roundspored Oysterling

Roundspored Oysterling

Gilled

A minute white shell- or fan-shaped fungus that sits directly on fallen twigs and bramble stems, distinguished microscopically by its almost perfectly spherical spores.

Spore print · Pale ochre-brown

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

False Turkey Tail

False Turkey Tail

Crusts

A thin, fan-shaped bracket banded in tan, orange and brown that mimics the true Turkey Tail from above but has a completely smooth, poreless underside.

Spore print · White

Bolete Eater

Bolete Eater

Other Fungi

A parasitic fungus that engulfs boletes in a felty white coat which ripens to bright golden yellow, distorting the host until its pores and stipe are barely recognisable.

Spore print · Not applicable; golden-yellow powdery spore mass

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

Ruddy Panus

Gilled

A tough, densely hairy little funnel- or fan-shaped mushroom in tan to rusty tones, with crowded decurrent gills that are lilac-tinted when fresh and fade to buff with age.

Spore print · White

Smooth Chanterelle

Gilled

A bright orange-yellow chanterelle whose underside is almost completely smooth, with only faint wrinkles instead of the usual forking ridges. It is a common summer fungus of eastern oak woodlands.

Spore print · Pale yellow to yellowish-cream

Gilled Bolete

Gilled Bolete

Boletes

A bolete that wears gills instead of pores: thick, widely spaced, bright golden-yellow blades running down the stipe beneath a dry velvety brown cap.

Spore print · Olive-yellow to yellowish-brown

Craterellus lutescens

Gilled

A slender funnel-shaped fungus with a scurfy brown cap, a bright orange-yellow hollow stalk and an almost smooth orange underside rather than distinct ridges.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Orange Mosscap

Gilled

A minute orange mushroom that dots mossy lawns and banks, with a navel-centred cap, deeply decurrent white gills, and a hair-thin stem.

Spore print · White

Orange Mycena

Gilled

A vividly orange, sticky-capped bonnet that grows in dense tufts on hardwood logs and is instantly recognised by the bright orange edges of its otherwise pale gills.

Spore print · White

Goldenhaired Inkcap

Goldenhaired Inkcap

Gilled

A small ochre-brown inkcap whose young cap is speckled with golden-brown veil granules; the gills blacken and deliquesce as the fruit body ages.

Spore print · Black

Fuzzy Foot

Gilled

A tiny orange-brown bell-shaped mushroom that erupts in enormous swarms across mossy conifer logs, recognised by decurrent veined gills and a tuft of tawny fuzz at the stipe base.

Spore print · White

Chanterelle

Chanterelle

Gilled

A solid egg-yellow funnel-shaped fungus whose underside carries blunt, forking, decurrent ridges rather than true gills. The flesh is white and fibrous and the odour is faintly of apricots.

Spore print · Pale cream to yellowish

Pluteus admirabilis

Gilled

A very small, delicate golden-yellow shield mushroom with a wrinkled cap centre, a strongly lined margin and free gills that flush pink. It is common on decaying hardwood in eastern North America.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink

Witch's Butter

Witch's Butter

Jellies

A vivid golden-yellow jelly fungus forming convoluted, brain-like blobs on dead branches, most conspicuous in wet winter weather. It is a parasite of crust fungi living in the same wood.

Spore print · White