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 American yellow fly agaric

Cortinarius gentilis

Gilled

A small, slender, tawny-orange webcap of mossy conifer forest, with thick widely spaced ochre gills and yellowish veil bands on a slim stem. Its dry silky cap carries a sharp umbo.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Flowerpot Parasol

Gilled

A slender, brilliant sulphur-yellow mushroom that appears overnight in the pots of houseplants and in greenhouse beds, with a powdery pleated cap and a fragile ringed stem. It collapses within a day, often before anyone notices it opened.

Spore print · White

Goldleaf Shield

Goldleaf Shield

Gilled

A small shield mushroom recognised by the contrast between its wrinkled brown cap and its bright chrome-yellow stem. It fruits on decaying hardwood twigs and buried debris.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink

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

Yellowleg Bonnet

Gilled

A small bonnet with a slimy, peelable cap skin and a slender, sticky, bright lemon-yellow stem. The elastic separable pellicle on cap and gill edge is its defining feature.

Spore print · White

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

Man on Horseback

Man on Horseback

Gilled

A stout, sulphur-yellow-gilled Tricholoma with a greasy olive-yellow cap that is usually half-buried in sand under pines. Its notched bright yellow gills and ringless pale stem are the key characters.

Spore print · White

Ornate-stalked Bolete

Boletes

A firm woodland bolete recognised by its brilliant chrome-yellow stipe covered in a raised network of ridges. Grey to olive caps sit above yellow pores that darken when handled.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Common Morel

Common Morel

Morels & Allies

A spring ascomycete with a pitted, honeycomb-like ovoid head fused to a hollow pale stalk, forming one continuous cavity from tip to base.

Spore print · Cream to pale yellow

Golden Oyster

Golden Oyster

Gilled

A clustered oyster mushroom with bright lemon to golden-yellow caps that flatten into shallow funnels, with white decurrent gills on fused off-centre stalks.

Spore print · White to pale lilac-grey

Chrome-footed Bolete

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

Craterellus lutescens

Gilled

A slender funnel-shaped fungus with a scurfy brown cap, a bright orange-yellow hollow stalk and an almost smooth orange underside rather than distinct ridges.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Painted Suillus

Boletes

A striking bolete clothed in shaggy brick-red scales over a yellow ground, with large radially arranged yellow pores. It grows only with five-needle pines.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Suede Bolete

Boletes

A medium bolete with a dry, suede-textured olive-brown cap over large, bright golden-yellow angular pores. The stipe is ribbed rather than netted and lacks red streaking.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Golden Waxcap

Golden Waxcap

Gilled

A clean lemon to golden-yellow waxcap with a viscid smooth cap and a slightly greasy yellow stem, one of the commonest and brightest species in autumn turf.

Spore print · White

Golden Brittlegill

Golden Brittlegill

Gilled

A small, brightly coloured brittlegill with one of the deepest yellow spore prints in the genus. Its cap ranges through gold, apricot, orange and rose, often on a single flush.

Spore print · Deep yellow to ochre

Golden Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

A vivid golden-yellow oyster mushroom that grows in dense bouquets from dead hardwood, its thin funnel-shaped caps fading to pale ochre as they age.

Spore print · White to pale lilac

Map Lichen

Crusts

A vivid yellow-green crustose lichen whose black-rimmed patches meet like countries on a map, painting granite and slate in exposed mountain country.

Spore print · Not applicable

Ochre Brittlegill

Gilled

One of the most abundant woodland brittlegills, with a plain dull ochre-yellow cap, pale cream gills and a white stipe that greys distinctly with age and wet weather.

Spore print · Pale cream

Conifer Mazegill

Conifer Mazegill

Polypores

A tough rust-brown bracket with a bright orange growing margin and an underside of thick, radiating, ochre-brown gill-like plates.

Spore print · White

Hairy Curtain Crust

Hairy Curtain Crust

Crusts

A thin, tough, wavy bracket with a hairy, concentrically zoned grey-buff top and a completely smooth bright orange-yellow underside with no pores, gills or teeth.

Spore print · White

Lemon Disco

Cups & Discs

Swarms of minute lemon-yellow discs scattered in their hundreds across damp barkless hardwood, one of the brightest sights on the autumn woodland floor.

Spore print · White

Golden Spindles

Corals & Clubs

Vivid egg-yellow spindles that fuse at the base into tight bundles, each club tapering to a fine point that browns with age. A signature fungus of old, unfertilised turf.

Spore print · White

Yellowfoot Dapperling

Gilled

A slim woodland dapperling with a shaggy ochre-brown scaly cap and a stem sheathed below the ring in loose yellow woolly veil, brightest toward the base. Its large spindle-shaped spores give the species its name.

Spore print · White