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 “Chicken of the Woods”
Field Bird's Nest
Other Fungi
A small grey goblet with a widely flaring, often wavy mouth and a smooth inner wall, holding a few unusually large lead-grey discs. It favours open ground and plant litter rather than deep woodland.
Spore print · Not applicable (spores held in peridioles)
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
Hairy Earthtongue
Other Fungi
A small black club or tongue standing upright in mossy turf, its whole surface matt and velvety from projecting bristles. It is a classic indicator of old unimproved waxcap grassland.
Spore print · Brown-black
Azalea Leaf Gall
Other Fungi
A basidiomycete that converts azalea leaves and buds into thick, fleshy, pale green to pink bladder-like galls. Mature galls develop a chalky white bloom of basidiospores before browning and hardening.
Spore print · White (surface bloom)
Spring King Bolete
Boletes
A western North American porcini relative that fruits in clustered groups near melting snow in mountain conifer forest, often half-buried with a soil-crusted reddish-brown cap.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Porcelain Fungus
Gilled
Glistening white, almost translucent caps coated in thick slime, clustered high on dead and dying beech, with a distinct ring on the slender white stem.
Spore print · White
Red-capped Scaber Stalk
Boletes
A robust scaber stalk with a vivid orange-red cap whose skin overhangs the rim, and white flesh that darkens dramatically through wine-red to grey-black when cut.
Spore print · Ochre-brown
Yellow Coral
Corals & Clubs
A bulky coral fungus with a stout white trunk and crowded lemon to sulphur-yellow branches. The white flesh characteristically stains reddish then brown where bruised.
Spore print · Pale yellow-ochre
Maple Tar Spot
Other Fungi
An ascomycete that lacquers maple and sycamore leaves with glossy black, tar-like blotches ringed in yellow, then fruits from the fallen leaves the following spring.
Spore print · Not applicable
Kalahari Truffle
Other Fungi
A southern African desert truffle forming pale sandy-brown underground bodies among dune grasses, betrayed at the surface by small cracks in the sand.
Spore print · Not applicable (hypogeous)
Chrome-footed Bolete
Boletes
A striking pink-capped bolete whose white stipe is dotted with pink scabers above and washed brilliant chrome-yellow at the base. The pore surface is white, ageing pink.
Spore print · Pinkish-brown
Beech Milkcap
Gilled
An abundant beechwood milkcap with a slimy olive-grey cap patterned with dark, droplet-like concentric spots. Its copious white latex dries grey on the gills.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Ravenel's Bolete
Boletes
An unmistakable bolete wrapped in a bright sulphur-yellow powdery veil that tears to reveal a sticky reddish cap and leaves a cottony yellow ring on the stipe.
Spore print · Olive-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
Mottled Bolete
Boletes
A birch scaber stalk recognised by its patchily mottled grey-brown cap and by flesh that flushes pink in the stem and stains vivid blue-green at the base.
Spore print · Snuff-brown
Rose Rust
Other Fungi
A rose-specific rust that speckles leaf undersides with orange pustules from late spring, replacing them with sooty black telia by autumn.
Spore print · Not applicable (orange then black spore masses)
Saffron Milk Cap
Gilled
A stout orange milkcap with concentric bands on the cap, decurrent orange gills, and carrot-orange latex that slowly turns the flesh green. It grows only with pines.
Spore print · Pale cream to buff
Spring Polypore
Polypores
A small centrally stalked polypore with a scaly tan cap edged in coarse hairs and unusually large angular white pores that run down the stem.
Spore print · White
Tawny Funnel
Gilled
A rusty orange-brown funnel that fruits in dense crowded troops and rings in woodland litter, with very crowded decurrent gills that age to the cap colour.
Spore print · Pale cream
Methuselah's Beard Lichen
Other Fungi
The longest lichen in the world, hanging in pale greenish ropes several metres long with short perpendicular side branches like a bottlebrush.
Spore print · Not applicable
Ugly Milkcap
Gilled
A dark olive-brown to almost black birch milkcap with a sticky cap, downy inrolled margin and cream gills that stain brown where the white latex dries.
Spore print · Cream
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
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
Lemon Peel Fungus
Cups & Discs
An ear-shaped yellow cup split down one side, with an apricot-pink flush on the inner surface, growing in leaf litter under broadleaved trees.
Spore print · White