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 Porcini Mushroom

Button Mushroom

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

Field Mushroom

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

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

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

Sky Blue Mushroom

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

Pink Oyster Mushroom

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

Scaly Wood Mushroom

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

Golden Oyster Mushroom

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

Brown Field Mushroom

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

Aspen Oyster Mushroom

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

Ringless Honey Mushroom

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

Fairy Ring Mushroom

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

Jack O'Lantern Mushroom

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

White Button Mushroom

White Button Mushroom

Gilled

The familiar rounded white Agaricus with free gills that shift from pale pink to dark brown and a soft ring on the stipe. Wild forms grow on rich, composted or manured ground rather than on wood.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown

Phoenix Oyster Mushroom

Phoenix Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

The warm-season oyster mushroom, with paler, thinner, more lung-shaped caps than the common oyster and a more clearly developed lateral stem.

Spore print · White to pale lilac-grey

Rosy Wood Mushroom

Rosy Wood Mushroom

Gilled

A delicate, small-statured Agaricus with pinkish-lilac fibrils over a cream cap and a stipe base that flushes chrome yellow when handled. It fruits in woodland and park litter.

Spore print · Dark brown

St. George's Mushroom

St. George's Mushroom

Gilled

A thick, cream-coloured spring grassland mushroom with crowded white gills, a stout ringless stipe and a strong mealy odour. It often grows in arcs and rings along hedge banks and downland turf.

Spore print · White

King Oyster Mushroom

King Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

The heaviest of the oyster mushrooms, with a small greyish-tan cap perched on a thick club-shaped white stem, growing from the dead root crowns of umbellifers in dry grassland.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Eastern Cauliflower Mushroom

Eastern Cauliflower Mushroom

Other Fungi

A large cream rosette built from broad, flat, concentrically zoned leaf-like lobes, growing at the base of oaks and other hardwoods in eastern North America.

Spore print · White to pale yellow

Elm Oyster Mushroom

Elm Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

A firm, pale, smooth-capped mushroom that grows from wounds on standing elms and maples, distinguished from true oysters by its stout central-to-eccentric stipe and gills that are notched rather than long-decurrent.

Spore print · White

Black Poplar Mushroom

Black Poplar Mushroom

Gilled

A clustered brown-spored wood mushroom with a smooth two-toned cap that cracks in dry weather, a pale fibrous stipe and a persistent membranous ring.

Spore print · Tobacco brown

Branched Oyster Mushroom

Branched Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

A cream to ochre oyster mushroom with deeply funnel-shaped caps growing in branched bouquets, identified by gills that run down the stem and fuse into a raised network.

Spore print · White to pale lilac

Blushing Wood Mushroom

Blushing Wood Mushroom

Gilled

A brown-scaled woodland Agaricus of conifer litter whose white flesh blushes vivid red within moments of being cut.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown

Chicken Fat Mushroom

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