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 “Field Mushroom”
Blushing Wood Mushroom
Gilled
A brown-scaled woodland Agaricus of conifer litter whose white flesh blushes vivid red within moments of being cut.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Chicken Fat Mushroom
Boletes
A slender bright yellow bolete with a slimy, red-streaked cap and cottony veil fragments on the margin. It grows only with eastern white pine, often in large troops.
Spore print · Cinnamon-brown
Yellow-staining Mushroom
Gilled
A white Agaricus of hedges and parks whose flesh flushes instant chrome-yellow when rubbed, most vividly in a cut stem base, and which carries a sharp phenolic odour. The young cap is characteristically squared off.
Spore print · Dark 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
American Caesar's Mushroom
Gilled
A brilliant red-to-orange Amanita of eastern North American oak and pine woods, with yellow gills, a yellow-orange skirt ring and a thick white sac at the base.
Spore print · White
The Prince
Gilled
One of the largest field mushrooms, with a squarish young cap patterned in fine golden-brown fibrous scales, a big pendulous ring and flesh that yellows slowly where handled. It smells strongly of almonds.
Spore print · Dark brown
Poplar Fieldcap
Gilled
A clustering trunk-dwelling mushroom with a tan cap that wrinkles and cracks with age, cinnamon-brown gills, and a tough pale stem carrying a persistent spore-stained ring.
Spore print · Dull tobacco brown
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
Meadow Puffball
Puffballs
A small flat-topped white puffball of short turf, distinguished by a membranous internal diaphragm that separates the spore mass from the sterile base. Mature bodies open by a wide ragged mouth.
Spore print · Olive-brown spore mass
Dark Fieldcap
Gilled
A sombre brown woodland fieldcap with a greasy, wrinkling cap and a persistent membranous ring that stains dark from falling spores. It grows on rich, often calcareous soil along shaded woodland paths.
Spore print · Dark brown
Netted Fieldcap
Gilled
A delicate wood-inhabiting fieldcap with a slimy greyish-lilac cap embossed with a network of raised veins, and rusty-brown gills on a fragile white stipe.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Yellow Fieldcap
Gilled
An extremely fragile, short-lived agaric whose slimy egg-yolk yellow cap expands, fades to grey and collapses within a day, leaving a rusty ochre spore print.
Spore print · Rusty ochre-brown
Spring Fieldcap
Gilled
An early-season fieldcap of woodchip and grassy path edges, with a pale tan cap, a ring on the stipe, white mycelial cords at the base and a dark brown spore print.
Spore print · Dark snuff-brown
Common Fieldcap
Gilled
A small ringless fieldcap of short turf, with a smooth hemispherical ochre-tan cap, slender pale stipe and dark brown gills and spore print.
Spore print · Dark brown
Bearded Fieldcap
Gilled
A firm, pale cream fieldcap of grassy places whose cap often cracks in dry weather and hangs shreds of white veil from the margin, giving it a bearded look.
Spore print · Dull brown to snuff brown
Shiitake
Gilled
A tough-fleshed wood-rotting agaric with a dry brown cap that cracks into a pale crazed pattern, white notched gills and a fibrous, off-centre stem with a fleeting ring zone.
Spore print · White
American Matsutake
Gilled
A heavy white mushroom with cinnamon-stained cap fibrils, notched white gills and a thick sheathing ring, pushing up through sandy conifer duff. Its powerful spicy aroma is unmistakable in the field.
Spore print · White
Salt-loving Agaricus
Gilled
A dense, thick-fleshed white Agaricus of salty ground, with a cap that cracks into coarse patches, reddening flesh, a sheathing ring and a briny odour.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Psathyrella aquatica
Gilled
A small brown-capped brittlestem remarkable for producing its fruit bodies fully submerged in flowing cold water, first documented in a spring-fed river in Oregon.
Spore print · Dark brown to blackish brown
Yellow Stainer
Gilled
A white Agaricus that flushes instant bright chrome-yellow when the cap margin is rubbed or the stem base is cut, and carries a distinctive ink-like odour. Young caps often have a flat-topped, squared-off profile.
Spore print · Dark chocolate-brown
Rooting Cauliflower
Other Fungi
A very large cream rosette of curled, ribbon-like lobes rising from a long tapering rooting base attached to conifer roots in western North America.
Spore print · White to pale yellow
Rooting Shank
Gilled
A tall, slender woodland mushroom with a wrinkled, greasy ochre cap, widely spaced white gills and a long tapering stem that continues underground as a deep root-like tail.
Spore print · White
Pink Oyster
Gilled
A tropical oyster mushroom forming shelved rosettes of bright salmon-pink fan-shaped caps with deeply decurrent gills, fading to buff with age.
Spore print · White to pale pinkish lilac
Neonothopanus gardneri
Gilled
A large Brazilian bracket-like agaric that grows from the leaf bases of babassu palms and glows a vivid yellow-green after dark. Its off-centre stipe, funnel-shaped tan cap and strongly decurrent gills are diagnostic.
Spore print · White