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 “Rooting Shank”
Conifercone Cap
Gilled
A small tan-buff mushroom that fruits directly from fallen spruce and pine cones, recognised by extremely crowded gills and a hairy, cord-like rooting stem base.
Spore print · White
Honey Fungus
Gilled
A clustered, honey-coloured woodland mushroom with a shaggy ring, white spore print and black bootlace-like rhizomorphs running under bark. It is one of the most significant tree-root parasites in temperate forests.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Red Edge Brittlestem
Gilled
A delicate brittlestem with a small bell-shaped cap on a long, thread-like white stem, and gills whose edges are flushed pink to reddish. The stem base often tapers into a rooting point.
Spore print · Blackish purple-brown
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
Caterpillar Fungus
Other Fungi
A parasitic fungus of ghost moth larvae that fills the caterpillar's body and pushes a single narrow dark brown club above the turf. The rigid larva remains attached below ground like a root.
Spore print · Not applicable — spores shed from perithecia
Pine Conk
Polypores
A woody, perennial bracket that forms hard hoof-shaped conks on the trunks of standing conifers, recognised by its cracked brown upper crust and irregular, maze-like yellow-brown pores.
Spore print · Yellowish brown
Orange Jelly
Jellies
A bright orange, brain-like jelly of barkless conifer wood, distinguished by the conspicuous whitish point where it roots into the log.
Spore print · Pale yellowish to whitish
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
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
Shingled Hedgehog
Toothed
A large brown toothed fungus whose cap is covered with coarse, dark, upturned scales arranged like roof shingles. It grows on the ground under conifers and drops a brown spore print.
Spore print · Brown
Palamino Cup
Cups & Discs
A broad, shallow tan cup fungus with a wavy, often split and outward-curling margin, appearing on rotting hardwood, wood chips and sawdust.
Spore print · White
Western Jack-O'-Lantern
Gilled
A clustered orange mushroom flushed with distinctive olive-green tones, with long-decurrent orange gills that glow faintly green in darkness, fruiting from oak stumps and roots on the Pacific coast.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
Galerina marginata
Gilled
A small, ringed, tawny-brown wood-rotting agaric with a strongly hygrophanous cap and a rusty spore print, fruiting in troops on decaying logs and mossy stumps.
Spore print · Rust-brown
Grooved Bonnet
Gilled
A firm grey bonnet distinguished by its rigid, silvery-grey stipe marked with fine longitudinal grooves running its full length. It arises from buried hardwood roots and decaying stumps.
Spore print · White
Glazed Cup
Cups & Discs
A small deep cup with a glazed white inner surface and a coarse brown bristly exterior, sitting on damp woodland soil and mossy rotting wood.
Spore print · White
Eyelash Cup
Cups & Discs
A miniature orange-red disc fungus rimmed with stiff black hairs like eyelashes, growing in troops on wet rotting wood and damp ground.
Spore print · Whitish
Flat Crep
Gilled
A small white to buff fan-shaped mushroom attached sideways to rotting hardwood, with radiating gills that darken to cinnamon and no real stem. It often grows in overlapping tiers.
Spore print · Pale cinnamon-brown
Bleeding Fairy Helmet
Gilled
A delicate reddish-brown bonnet that exudes dark blood-red latex from its hollow stipe when broken, growing in tight clusters on rotting hardwood.
Spore print · White
British Soldiers Lichen
Other Fungi
A small Cladonia whose grey-green stalks are capped with vivid scarlet fruiting knobs, growing in colonies on rotting stumps, fence rails and acid soil.
Spore print · Not applicable
Crown-tipped Coral
Corals & Clubs
A wood-inhabiting coral whose every branch ends in a small crown or cup ringed with tiny points, growing in rows along rotting hardwood logs.
Spore print · White
Admirable Bolete
Boletes
A rich maroon-brown bolete of Pacific Northwest hemlock forest that fruits on and around well-rotted conifer logs, with bright yellow pores and a stout reddish-brown stipe.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Pixie's Parasol
Gilled
A tiny Southern Hemisphere bonnet with a startling sky-blue to turquoise gelatinous cap, attached to rotting wood by a small basal disc. It is a signature fungus of cool, wet temperate rainforest.
Spore print · White
Funeral Bell
Gilled
A small, strongly hygrophanous honey-brown mushroom of rotting wood, identified by rusty brown spores, a thin membranous ring dusted rust by falling spores, and clustered growth on logs.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Shiitake
Gilled
A tough-fleshed wood-rotting agaric with a dry brown cap that cracks into a pale crazed pattern, white notched gills and a fibrous, off-centre stem with a fleeting ring zone.
Spore print · White