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”
Goldenhaired Inkcap
Gilled
A small ochre-brown inkcap whose young cap is speckled with golden-brown veil granules; the gills blacken and deliquesce as the fruit body ages.
Spore print · Black
Beaked Earthstar
Puffballs
An elegant earthstar with the longest stalk in the genus and a slender, conspicuously furrowed beak crowning its grey, finely granular spore sac.
Spore print · Dark brown (spore mass)
Common Script Lichen
Crusts
A pale grey bark crust inscribed with fine black branching slits that look like handwriting or hieroglyphs across the trunk.
Spore print · Not applicable
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
Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic
Puffballs
A small, brilliant red spore ball with star-shaped lips, sheathed in clear jelly and raised on a stalk of tangled gelatinous cords. It grows on bare mossy clay banks in oak-rich hardwood forest.
Spore print · Pale yellowish to whitish
Milky Conecap
Gilled
An extremely fragile white to cream conical mushroom of lawns and short grass that appears overnight and collapses within hours, betrayed by its rusty cinnamon spore print.
Spore print · Rusty cinnamon-brown
Small Chanterelle
Gilled
A miniature orange-yellow chanterelle, often no wider than a fingernail, scattered in moss beneath oaks. Its thin flesh, widely spaced blunt ridges and slender stalk are diagnostic.
Spore print · Pale yellow to whitish
Lactarius scrobiculatus
Gilled
A large yellow, zoned milkcap with a shaggy bearded cap margin and a stipe pitted with distinct coloured hollows (scrobicules). Its white latex turns sulphur-yellow within seconds of exposure.
Spore print · Pale cream to pale yellow
Deceiving Milkcap
Gilled
A small, pale pinkish-tan milkcap whose white latex turns bright yellow within seconds of exposure. A faint geranium-like odour and a preference for hornbeam and hazel help confirm it.
Spore print · Pale cream
Stinking Dapperling
Gilled
A small white dapperling whose cap carries a smooth reddish-brown central disc surrounded by rings of small brown scales. It grows in troops on lawns, verges and woodland margins and has a sharp rubbery odour.
Spore print · White
Striated Earthstar
Puffballs
An earthstar recognised by the flaring collar or skirt that spreads beneath its grey spore sac, combined with a sharply grooved, beak-like mouth on a short stalk.
Spore print · Dark brown (spore mass)
Pale Brittlestem
Gilled
A fragile, pale-capped clustering mushroom with a toothed veil fringe on the cap edge, gills that shift from white through grey to purple-brown, and a brittle hollow white stem.
Spore print · Purple-brown
Tripe Fungus
Jellies
Tiered brackets with a hairy, concentrically zoned grey-brown upper surface and a deeply wrinkled purplish, gelatinous lower surface that gives the species its name.
Spore print · White
Lumpy Bracket
Polypores
A thick, chalky-white semicircular bracket with a pronounced lump above the attachment point and distinctive elongated, slot-like pores underneath.
Spore print · White
Potato Earthball
Puffballs
A pale, almost smooth earthball that looks like a small buried potato, with a thin rind that cracks into fine scurfy patches. The interior ripens from white to a purple-brown dust.
Spore print · Purple-brown to blackish (spore mass)
False Coral
Corals & Clubs
A pale, tough, coral-like fungus whose flattened branches fuse sideways into fan-shaped or rosette-like masses on woodland soil. It looks like a coral fungus but belongs to the jelly fungus lineage.
Spore print · White
Jelly Tooth
Jellies
A translucent grey to whitish gelatinous tongue whose underside is covered in soft, blunt spines, the only jelly fungus with a truly toothed fertile surface.
Spore print · White
Hollow-stemmed Larch Bolete
Boletes
A dry, shaggy brown larch bolete with large radiating yellow pores and a uniquely hollow, chambered stalk. Cutting the stem lengthways confirms it instantly.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Winter Chanterelle
Gilled
A slender brown funnel-shaped chanterelle with shallow grey-lilac forking ridges and a hollow yellow stem, fruiting in mossy conifer woodland late in the season.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Powdery Amanita
Gilled
A small, slender, ringless amanita whose grey-brown cap looks dusted with flour, with a strongly grooved margin and only powdery grey remnants at the slightly swollen base.
Spore print · White
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
Paddy Straw Mushroom
Gilled
A tropical Volvariella that emerges from a dark, egg-like universal veil, leaving a thick sac at the stem base beneath a silky grey-brown cap with free pink gills.
Spore print · Pink to salmon pink
Orange Birch Bolete
Boletes
A tall, striking bolete with a bright orange felty cap, a white stipe studded with blackish scabers, and white flesh that turns pinkish-grey and then near-black when cut. It grows only with birch.
Spore print · Ochre-brown
Charcoal Burner
Gilled
A common woodland brittlegill with a variably purple, green and slate-grey cap, unique in the genus for gills that are soft, greasy and flexible rather than brittle and shattering.
Spore print · White