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 “Parasol Mushroom”
Deer Mushroom
Gilled
A soft grey-brown wood-dwelling mushroom with free gills that turn pink as they mature, no ring and no volva, and a pink spore print.
Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink
Caesar's Mushroom
Gilled
A striking Mediterranean Amanita with a smooth orange cap, a strongly grooved margin, deep golden-yellow free gills and stem, and a thick white membranous sac at the base.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Haymaker's Mushroom
Gilled
A tiny, extremely common lawn fungus with a hygrophanous date-brown cap that dries pale from the centre, and mottled dark brown gills with pale edges. Its dark brown rather than black spore print separates it from true Panaeolus.
Spore print · Dark brown
Almond Mushroom
Gilled
A warm-climate Agaricus of compost and enriched garden soil, recognised by its brown-fibrillose cap, large pendulous ring and strong almond-like aroma.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Inky Mushroom
Gilled
A grey-scaled woodland Agaricus with a dark-centred cap, a chrome-yellow staining stipe base and a distinctly inky odour.
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
Honey Mushroom
Gilled
A clustered honey-coloured woodland fungus with a finely scaly cap, a thick woolly ring and black bootlace-like cords running under the bark of its host. It is one of the most important tree parasites in temperate forests.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Gypsy Mushroom
Gilled
A sturdy ochre mushroom with a radially wrinkled cap dusted silvery-white over the centre, rusty-brown gills, and the unusual distinction of a true membranous ring on a webcap.
Spore print · Rusty ochre-brown
Meadow Mushroom
Gilled
The classic white grassland Agaricus, with free gills that shift from bright pink to chocolate-brown, a simple fragile ring and a dark brown spore print. It appears in troops and rings on old pasture after rain.
Spore print · Dark chocolate-brown
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
Hedgehog Mushroom
Toothed
A cream to pale apricot mushroom whose underside is covered in crowded, brittle, easily detached spines instead of gills or pores. It grows in troops and arcs on mossy woodland floors and often has an off-centre stipe.
Spore print · White to cream
Horse Mushroom
Gilled
A large, robust white grassland Agaricus with a distinctive double 'cogwheel' ring, greyish-white young gills that turn chocolate-brown, and a strong aniseed odour. It forms troops and rings in open pasture.
Spore print · Dark chocolate-brown
Button Mushroom
Gilled
A stocky white or tan Agaricus with free gills that run from pale pink through cocoa to blackish brown, a simple membranous ring, and no volva at the stem base.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Scaly Wood Mushroom
Gilled
A tall woodland Agaricus clothed in dark reddish-brown fibrous scales, whose white flesh turns vivid blood-red within seconds of being cut. Fruits in conifer and mixed forest litter.
Spore print · Dark brown
Brown Field Mushroom
Gilled
A squat, firm coastal Agaricus with a brown-scaled cap and an exceptionally thick, short stipe. It favours sandy grassland and dune systems near the sea.
Spore print · Dark brown
Ringless Honey Mushroom
Gilled
A honey-brown clustered wood fungus that matches the true Honey Mushroom in colour and habit but has no ring at all on its long tapering stem. It swarms in huge tufts around the bases of oaks and other hardwoods.
Spore print · White
Sky Blue Mushroom
Gilled
A small, intensely indigo-blue forest mushroom whose gills flush salmon-pink as its angular pink spores mature.
Spore print · Pink
Jack O'Lantern Mushroom
Gilled
A vivid orange gilled mushroom that grows in dense clumps on hardwood stumps and roots, with sharp, deep, decurrent true gills whose edges can glow faintly in darkness.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
Pink Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
A tropical and subtropical oyster mushroom forming rosettes of thin salmon-pink to rose fans on dead hardwood, the colour fading to buff as the fruit bodies mature.
Spore print · Pale pink to whitish
Aspen Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
A North American oyster mushroom restricted to dead aspen and cottonwood, with pale fleshy caps in overlapping shelves and a buff-tinted rather than lilac spore print.
Spore print · White to pale buff
Golden Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
A vivid golden-yellow oyster mushroom that grows in dense bouquets from dead hardwood, its thin funnel-shaped caps fading to pale ochre as they age.
Spore print · White to pale lilac
Fairy Ring Mushroom
Gilled
A small, tough-stemmed grassland mushroom with a tan, broadly umbonate cap and widely spaced pale gills, famous for growing in expanding rings and arcs on lawns and pasture.
Spore print · White
Chicken Fat Mushroom
Boletes
A slender bright yellow bolete with a slimy, red-streaked cap and cottony veil fragments on the margin. It grows only with eastern white pine, often in large troops.
Spore print · Cinnamon-brown
Yellow-staining Mushroom
Gilled
A white Agaricus of hedges and parks whose flesh flushes instant chrome-yellow when rubbed, most vividly in a cut stem base, and which carries a sharp phenolic odour. The young cap is characteristically squared off.
Spore print · Dark brown