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 “Orange Coral Fungus”
Golden Cup
Cups & Discs
A vivid orange spring cup fungus of conifer duff whose margins and bruised areas stain a distinctive blue-green. It is one of the earliest fungi to appear at the edge of retreating snow.
Spore print · White
Rosy Crust
Crusts
A thin waxy crust in warm salmon-pink to coral-orange shades, spreading along dead attached twigs of hazel, oak and gorse.
Spore print · White
Golden Ear
Jellies
A deep golden-orange jelly fungus forming firm, ear- or petal-shaped lobes on hardwood, always accompanied by the hairy brackets of Stereum hirsutum, the host it parasitises.
Spore print · White
Scarlet Bonnet
Gilled
A small bonnet with a coral-pink to scarlet conical cap that fades towards orange-pink with age, carried on a slender pale stem. It fruits among mosses, grasses and conifer needles.
Spore print · White
Scarlet Caterpillarclub
Other Fungi
A small bright orange club fungus that grows out of the buried pupa or larva of a moth. Digging carefully beneath the club reveals the orange-stained insect from which it arises.
Spore print · White
Smoky Spindles
Corals & Clubs
A grassland club fungus forming dense tufts of slim, unbranched, smoke-grey to pale pinkish-grey spindles that are hollow and very brittle. It is one of the classic indicator fungi of ancient, low-fertility turf.
Spore print · White
Stinking Earthfan
Corals & Clubs
An upright, tough, coral-like fungus with purple- to blackish-brown branches ending in flattened, whitish, fan-shaped tips, growing from soil in conifer woodland. Its strong, penetrating odour usually announces it before it is seen.
Spore print · Purple-brown
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
Rose Spindles
Corals & Clubs
A scarce, delicate club fungus forming slender rose-pink unbranched spindles among moss and short turf. Its clear pink colour is unique among temperate grassland clubs.
Spore print · White
Lobster Mushroom
Other Fungi
Not a mushroom in its own right but a parasitic ascomycete that encases Russula and Lactarius fruitbodies in a pimpled, brilliant orange-red crust, twisting them into dense, contorted shapes.
Spore print · Not applicable
Stalked Lattice Stinkhorn
Stinkhorns
A tall stinkhorn with a slender whitish stalk carrying a globose, orange-red latticed head whose mesh spaces are filled with dark olive spore slime.
Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)
Crowded Parchment
Crusts
Dense masses of small, thin, orange-tan fans that fuse along their edges to sheathe fallen hardwood twigs and branches. The underside is smooth and unbroken, with no pores or wrinkles.
Spore print · White
Columned Stinkhorn
Stinkhorns
A warm-climate stinkhorn built from two to five thick orange columns that are free at the base and joined in an arch at the top, with dark spore slime on the inner faces of the arch.
Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)
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
Fragrant Chanterelle
Gilled
A vivid orange trumpet-shaped fungus that grows in dense fused clusters from a common base, with a nearly smooth underside and a powerful sweet aroma.
Spore print · Pale yellow to cream
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
Red Cage
Stinkhorns
A startling stinkhorn that hatches from a whitish egg as a hollow, spherical cage of coral-red spongy arms, with dark olive spore slime lining the inner faces of the mesh.
Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)
Saffron Milkcap
Gilled
A pine-associated milkcap with a concentrically zoned carrot-orange funnel cap, decurrent orange gills, carrot-coloured latex and a pitted stem, the whole fungus staining dull green where damaged.
Spore print · Pale ochre to buff
Crepidotus crocophyllus
Gilled
A stalkless fan-shaped wood fungus with a whitish cap flecked with tawny-brown scales and distinctive saffron to orange-yellow gills that age brown. It fruits on decaying hardwood.
Spore print · Brown to cinnamon-brown
Jelly Rot
Crusts
A soft, gelatinous crust that turns its upper edge outward into small white hairy shelves, with a shocking orange-pink wrinkled and ridged spore surface beneath. It sprawls in overlapping sheets across fallen logs in late autumn.
Spore print · White
Yellow Stagshorn
Jellies
Bright orange-yellow antler-shaped branches with a tough, gelatinous, rubbery texture, rooting into buried conifer wood by a deep tapering base.
Spore print · White to pale yellow
Juniper-Hawthorn Rust
Other Fungi
A two-host rust fungus that forms small brown galls with orange jelly horns on juniper in spring, then orange leaf spots with tubular outgrowths on hawthorn.
Spore print · Not applicable
Cedar-Apple Rust
Other Fungi
A rust fungus that alternates between junipers, where it forms brown galls that push out orange gelatinous horns in spring rain, and apples, where it makes bright orange leaf spots.
Spore print · Not applicable
Chestnut Blight
Other Fungi
A bark-inhabiting sac fungus that forms sunken orange-brown cankers studded with pinhead-sized orange fruiting bodies. Fans of buff mycelium spread beneath the cracked bark of the affected stem.
Spore print · Not applicable