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 “Red-capped Scaber Stalk”
Bear Lentinus
Gilled
A stalkless, fan-shaped bracket with a dark velvety-hairy base and pale, sharply saw-toothed gills radiating from the point of attachment to dead hardwood.
Spore print · White
Orange Mock Oyster
Gilled
A stalkless bright orange bracket covered in dense woolly hair, with deep orange gills radiating beneath, fruiting in overlapping tiers on dead logs in late autumn.
Spore print · Pinkish buff
Rounded Earthstar
Puffballs
A small earthstar whose stalkless spore sac sits in a saucer of recurved rays, its fibrous mouth ringed by a distinct circular depressed zone. One of the most widespread earthstars worldwide.
Spore print · Brown (spore mass)
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
Resinous Polypore
Polypores
A broad, soft, velvety bracket that is reddish brown with a thick white growing edge, exudes amber droplets when young, and has a white pore surface that bruises brownish.
Spore print · White
Desert Truffle
Other Fungi
A hypogeous ascomycete of arid steppe that forms pale, smooth-skinned tubers among sun-rose plants, with a reddish-brown gleba veined in white.
Spore print · Not applicable (hypogeous)
Fringed Earthstar
Puffballs
A small, pale, stalkless earthstar whose fibrous mouth is ragged and fringed but never enclosed in a sharply outlined court. One of the commonest earthstars of woodland litter.
Spore print · Brown (spore mass)
Purple Jellydisc
Jellies
Clusters of rubbery reddish-purple blobs and shallow discs crowding dead beech stumps, alternating between a lumpy asexual form and neat spore-bearing cups.
Spore print · White
Veined Cup
Cups & Discs
A broad, almost stalkless brown disc whose inner surface is scored with prominent radiating veins, found on damp ground in spring. A strong chlorine-like odour and the pale, mealy outer surface make it easy to recognise.
Spore print · White to cream
The Blusher
Gilled
A robust woodland Amanita whose flesh slowly stains wine-pink to reddish-brown wherever it is cut, bruised or nibbled by insects, with a grooved ring and dirty pinkish-grey veil warts.
Spore print · White
Shaggy Parasol
Gilled
A stout, heavily shaggy relative of the Parasol Mushroom with a smooth unbanded stem, a bulbous base and pale flesh that stains saffron then dull reddish brown where it is cut.
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
Blackening Brittlegill
Gilled
A heavy, thick-fleshed brittlegill with unusually distant, fat gills whose white flesh reddens then slowly turns grey and finally coal-black, leaving charred-looking husks that persist for months.
Spore print · White
Wood Ear
Jellies
A gelatinous, tan to reddish-brown bracket shaped remarkably like a human ear, with a veined and folded inner surface and a minutely velvety outer face. It is strongly associated with elder and fruits through the coldest months.
Spore print · White
False Morel
Morels & Allies
A spring ascomycete with a reddish to dark brown head thrown into irregular convoluted lobes like a brain or a crumpled turban, with no ridge-and-pit honeycomb. Cut vertically it is irregularly chambered rather than one clean hollow.
Spore print · Pale cream to yellowish
Basket Fungus
Stinkhorns
A white latticed sphere of spongy arms that hatches from a gelatinous egg and, uniquely, detaches at maturity so the whole basket can be rolled about by wind.
Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)
Jack-o'-Lantern
Gilled
A vivid orange clustering mushroom of hardwood stumps with true, sharp-edged, deeply decurrent gills that can glow faintly green in darkness, and a pale spore print.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellowish 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
Amethyst Deceiver
Gilled
A small woodland mushroom that is intensely violet when fresh and moist, with thick, widely spaced gills of the same colour and a fibrous, twisted stem. It fades so dramatically as it dries that it can look like a completely different species.
Spore print · White
Hericium abietis
Toothed
The largest of the western toothed corals, forming cream-white branched masses on dead conifer wood. It is the conifer counterpart of the hardwood-loving Hericium species and can reach the size of a football or larger.
Spore print · White
Dry Rot Fungus
Crusts
A flat, spreading wood-decay fungus forming rusty-brown wrinkled sheets edged with a thick white cottony margin, best known from structural conifer timber in damp buildings. Its pale, cord-like strands can travel long distances across masonry.
Spore print · Rusty brown