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 “Sulphur Tuft”
Angel's Bonnet
Gilled
A late-fruiting bonnet with an olive-grey to yellowish cap and a slender stem, growing in tufts on mossy hardwood. Fresh material carries a distinctive iodine-like smell.
Spore print · White
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
Iceland Moss
Other Fungi
An erect, tufted lichen of arctic and mountain heaths with curled chestnut-brown straps whose margins are fringed with tiny stiff spines.
Spore print · Not applicable
Common Bonnet
Gilled
A tough-stemmed grey-brown bonnet with a radially grooved bell-shaped cap and pink-tinged, cross-veined gills, fruiting in tufts on hardwood stumps for most of the year.
Spore print · White
White Spindles
Corals & Clubs
Clusters of slender, brittle, pure white unbranched clubs that grow in tight tufts among moss and short grass. They snap at the slightest pressure, giving the species its name.
Spore print · White
Wolf Lichen
Other Fungi
An unmistakable neon yellow-green shrubby lichen that forms bristly tufts on conifer bark and bare weathered wood in dry mountain forests.
Spore print · Not applicable
Sheathed Woodtuft
Gilled
A tufted stump mushroom whose hygrophanous cap dries in two tones from the centre out, above a narrow ring and a stem clad below in coarse dark upturned scales.
Spore print · Ochre-brown to cinnamon brown
Spiny Puffball
Puffballs
A small round puffball densely armed with long dark brown spines that converge in tufts, leaving a net-like pattern where they fall. It is typically found on rich humus beneath beech.
Spore print · Purple-brown spore mass
Scaly Inkcap
Gilled
A clustered inkcap whose buff-brown bell-shaped cap is decorated with felty whitish veil patches. It fruits in tufts on hardwood stumps and buried wood.
Spore print · Black
Alder Scalycap
Gilled
A tufted lemon-yellow Pholiota of wet woodland that grows on alder and birch stumps, with a smooth slightly sticky cap, sweetish scent and clay-brown spore print.
Spore print · Clay-brown to rust-brown
Common Stump Brittlestem
Gilled
A densely tufted stump mushroom with a date-brown cap that dries pale from the centre outward, brittle hollow white stems, and dark purple-brown spores.
Spore print · Dark purple-brown
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
Beautiful Bonnet
Gilled
A tufted wood bonnet with a pale ochre-brown cap and a striking bright yellow stipe, most often found on beech. The contrast between pale cap and vivid stem base gives it its name.
Spore print · White
Common Ink Cap
Gilled
A clustered grey inkcap with an egg- to bell-shaped, faintly scaly cap that splits at the grooved margin and dissolves upward into black liquid, growing in tufts from buried wood.
Spore print · Black
Violet Coral
Corals & Clubs
An unmistakable amethyst to magenta-violet coral fungus forming small tufts of blunt-tipped branches in old grassland and mossy woodland. Its intense colour is unmatched among temperate corals.
Spore print · White
Velvet Shank
Gilled
A tufted orange-capped mushroom with a slimy cap and a distinctive dark, velvety stem base, fruiting on hardwood stumps in the coldest months. The contrast between the bright cap and near-black stem is the giveaway.
Spore print · White
Common Inkcap
Gilled
A clustered grey-brown inkcap whose egg-shaped cap opens into a ribbed bell and then digests itself from the rim inward, dripping away as black ink. It rises in dense tufts from buried wood in gardens, verges and woodland edges.
Spore print · Black
Clustered Bonnet
Gilled
A small bell-capped bonnet that grows in dense tufts on oak and sweet chestnut stumps, recognised by the finely toothed, scalloped cap edge and a slender stem that turns golden then rusty orange-brown below.
Spore print · White
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
Enoki
Gilled
A cold-weather wood-rotter forming dense tufts of small, glossy tawny caps above dark velvety stems. Cultivated strains grown in darkness look completely different: long, pale, thread-thin stems with tiny white caps.
Spore print · White
Bear's Head Tooth
Toothed
A large white hardwood fungus built from branching arms whose tips carry dense tufts of long, icicle-like spines. Its cascading, shaggy outline makes it one of the most recognisable fungi in eastern North American forests.
Spore print · White