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 Tinder Conk and Turkey Tail

Ear-pick Fungus

Ear-pick Fungus

Toothed

A miniature dark brown toothed fungus with a kidney-shaped hairy cap on a slender side-attached stalk, growing directly from decaying pine cones. Its shape recalls an old-fashioned ear-pick.

Spore print · White

Greenflush Fibrecap

Greenflush Fibrecap

Gilled

A sturdy pale ochre fibrecap with a distinctive blue-green flush over the cap centre and a sweet aromatic odour. Found on richer soils in broadleaf and mixed woodland.

Spore print · Snuff-brown

Pinecone Cap

Pinecone Cap

Gilled

A slender spring mushroom arising from buried pine cones, with a small pale brown cap, whitish widely spaced gills, and a long tawny rooting stem.

Spore print · White

Gem-studded Puffball

Gem-studded Puffball

Puffballs

A small white to buff puffball shaped like an inverted pear, covered in detachable cone-shaped spines that leave a net-like pattern of scars when they fall. It releases spores through a neat apical pore in the top of the head.

Spore print · Olive-brown (spore mass)

Brown Birch Bolete

Brown Birch Bolete

Boletes

The commonest of the scaber stalks, a tall grey-brown bolete of birch woodland with a slender stem roughened by dark scaly tufts.

Spore print · Snuff-brown

Petticoat Mottlegill

Gilled

A tall, slim dung mushroom with a grey bell-shaped cap edged in white veil fragments and strongly mottled black gills.

Spore print · Black

Big Blue Pinkgill

Big Blue Pinkgill

Gilled

A stout, deep steel-blue pinkgill of ancient calcareous grassland, with white gills turning pink and a thick blue-tinged stipe.

Spore print · Pink

Moose Antlers

Moose Antlers

Cups & Discs

Clusters of tall, ear- or antler-shaped rubbery blades rising from a hard underground mass in rich eastern North American hardwood forest.

Spore print · Brownish

Trooping Funnel

Trooping Funnel

Gilled

A tall, large pale buff funnel that forms sweeping troops and fairy rings along woodland edges, keeping a distinct central bump in the funnel.

Spore print · White

Small Stagshorn

Small Stagshorn

Jellies

Small, tough-gelatinous yellow spikes that stand upright in groups along dead hardwood, usually unbranched and rarely more than a couple of centimetres tall.

Spore print · White to pale yellowish

Arched Earthstar

Puffballs

A tall earthstar that stands on four arched, leg-like rays with their tips anchored in a cup of mycelium, holding the stalked spore sac well clear of the ground.

Spore print · Dark brown (spore mass)

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)

Shaggy Mane

Shaggy Mane

Gilled

A tall white cylindrical mushroom covered in shaggy upturned scales, whose gills blacken and dissolve into an inky liquid from the cap margin upward as it matures.

Spore print · Black

Grisette

Grisette

Gilled

A slender grey Amanita with a strongly grooved cap margin, free white gills, no ring at all, and a tall white membranous sac enclosing the stem base.

Spore print · White

Panaeolus olivaceus

Gilled

A small, easily overlooked grassland mottlegill with an olive-tinged hygrophanous cap that often wrinkles as it dries, mottled darkening gills and a black spore print.

Spore print · Black

Wrinkled Fieldcap

Wrinkled Fieldcap

Gilled

A tall pale fieldcap of fresh woodchip, recognised by its distinctly wrinkled and veined cap surface and the large flaring ring hanging from a white stipe.

Spore print · Dark brown

Tawny Grisette

Tawny Grisette

Gilled

A slim, ringless, foxy orange-brown Amanita of acid woodland and heath, with free white gills and a tall white sac at the base stained rusty brown.

Spore print · White

White Birch Bolete

White Birch Bolete

Boletes

A ghostly pale scaber stalk of wet birch bogs, almost white overall with soft watery flesh and a faint greenish tinge to the cap and stem base.

Spore print · Pale snuff-brown

Stocking Webcap

Stocking Webcap

Gilled

A firm violet-tinged webcap of beech and oak woodland whose lower stipe is sheathed in a white boot-like veil ending in a crisp upturned rim.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Train Wrecker

Gilled

A tough, cream-coloured agaric patterned with flat brown scales, whose deeply decurrent gills have coarsely sawn edges; it is famous for rotting railway sleepers and other conifer timber.

Spore print · White

Hare's Ear

Hare's Ear

Cups & Discs

A tan to fox-brown ear-shaped cup, split down one side and taller than wide, growing from needle litter and moss in coniferous woodland.

Spore print · White

Orange Grisette

Orange Grisette

Gilled

A tall ringless Amanita with a glowing apricot-orange cap, free white gills and a stem banded with orange-cream chevrons above a large white membranous sac.

Spore print · White

Birch Bolete

Birch Bolete

Boletes

A tall, slender bolete with a dull brown cap, off-white pores and a long white stipe roughened by vertical rows of small dark scabers. It grows only with birch.

Spore print · Snuff-brown to ochre-brown

Wet Rot Fungus

Wet Rot Fungus

Crusts

A thin, closely attached crust that starts creamy white and matures to olive- or umber-brown, its surface roughened with small warts and lumps. It grows on persistently wet dead wood outdoors and on damp timber indoors.

Spore print · Olive-brown