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 “Old Man of the Woods”
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
Umbrella Polypore
Polypores
A large branched cluster bearing dozens of small circular grey-brown caps, each with its own central stalk, growing from an underground tuber near hardwood roots.
Spore print · White
Coprinellus radians
Gilled
A small tawny inkcap recognised less by the mushroom than by the conspicuous rusty-orange felted mat of mycelium, called an ozonium, that spreads across the wood beneath it.
Spore print · Blackish brown
Midden Inkcap
Gilled
A miniature counterpart of the Shaggy Inkcap that lives on manure heaps, with a white scaly cylindrical cap, a slender ringed stem and the same rapid melt into black ink.
Spore print · Black
Golden Spindles
Corals & Clubs
Vivid egg-yellow spindles that fuse at the base into tight bundles, each club tapering to a fine point that browns with age. A signature fungus of old, unfertilised turf.
Spore print · White
Grey Milkcap
Gilled
A thin-fleshed lilac-grey milkcap of damp birch woods whose white latex dries grey-green on the gills. The greasy, smooth cap and grey-staining pale gills are its key marks.
Spore print · Pale cream
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
Field Mushroom
Gilled
The classic white mushroom of old pasture, with a dry silky cap, a thin fragile ring and gills that are a vivid bright pink when young before turning chocolate-brown. It fruits in troops and rings after rain.
Spore print · Dark brown
Firerug Inkcap
Gilled
An inkcap identified by the rusty-orange felted mycelial mat, the ozonium, that carpets the wood it grows from. The tawny cap is grooved and dusted with pale granular veil.
Spore print · Black
White Chanterelle
Gilled
A stout, chalk-white chanterelle of western North American conifer forests, with blunt decurrent ridges instead of gills and flesh that stains rusty orange wherever it is touched.
Spore print · White
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
Copper Brittlegill
Gilled
A sturdy orange-brown brittlegill of northern pine woods whose white flesh and stipe turn ash-grey and finally blackish as the fruiting body ages.
Spore print · Pale ochre
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
Rosy Brittlegill
Gilled
A hard-fleshed rose-red brittlegill of beech woods with a distinctive matt, chalky cap surface and a stipe often flushed pink at the base.
Spore print · Cream
American Caesar's Mushroom
Gilled
A brilliant red-to-orange Amanita of eastern North American oak and pine woods, with yellow gills, a yellow-orange skirt ring and a thick white sac at the base.
Spore print · White
Banded Mottlegill
Gilled
A widespread mottlegill of compost heaps and manured ground, recognised by a hygrophanous reddish-brown cap that dries with a darker band around the margin and a jet-black spore print.
Spore print · Black
Zombie-Ant Fungus
Other Fungi
A parasitic fungus of carpenter ants that manipulates its host into clamping onto vegetation before killing it, then sends a wiry stalk out of the ant's head to release spores over the trail below.
Spore print · Not applicable
Agarikon
Polypores
A large, chalky white, hoof-shaped to column-like perennial bracket found high on old-growth conifers. Its soft, crumbly white interior and cracked outer surface set it apart from every other large conk.
Spore print · White
Lake's Bolete
Boletes
A scaly reddish-brown bolete of Douglas-fir woods with large radial yellow pores and a ring zone. Flesh at the very stalk base often flushes blue-green.
Spore print · Olive-brown to cinnamon
Willow Shield
Gilled
A slender grey to greenish-grey shield mushroom of damp riverside woods, with free gills that turn salmon-pink, a pale stem often bluing at the base, and a pink spore print.
Spore print · Pink
Pearly Parachute
Gilled
A pale, silky-capped litter mushroom of beech woods, faintly washed with lilac-grey and growing in loose tufts from a white woolly base in the leaf mould.
Spore print · White
Grey Knight
Gilled
A soft grey knight of pine woods, with a dry cap densely covered in fine radiating fibrils and scales, white sinuate gills and a brittle white stipe. It is the commonest of a confusing group of grey Tricholoma species.
Spore print · White
Cinnabar Chanterelle
Gilled
A diminutive chanterelle in vivid cinnabar red to pinkish-orange, with blunt forking ridges instead of true gills. It appears in scattered troops on the soil of eastern North American oak woods.
Spore print · Pinkish-cream to pale pink
Grey Shag
Gilled
A tall, fragile inkcap of manure and composted straw, its ovoid grey cap coated in loose woolly veil fibres before it splits, curls and melts away into black ink.
Spore print · Black