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 “Greasy Toughshank”
Grooved Bonnet
Gilled
A firm grey bonnet distinguished by its rigid, silvery-grey stipe marked with fine longitudinal grooves running its full length. It arises from buried hardwood roots and decaying stumps.
Spore print · White
Sepia Brittlegill
Gilled
A dull sepia-brown brittlegill of grassy parkland and path edges, recognised by its strongly ridged cap margin and strong unpleasant odour. It is typically found under oak and lime.
Spore print · Cream
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
Slate Bolete
Boletes
A firm, slate-grey to grey-brown scaber stalk of poplars, with a long rooting stem, dark scabers, and cut flesh that reddens then turns blue-green at the base.
Spore print · Ochre-brown
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
Deadly Dapperling
Gilled
A small, squat dapperling with a pale cap broken into concentric bands of pinkish- to purplish-brown scales and a stem girdled below the ring with matching fibrous bands. It favours grassy urban ground and hedgerows.
Spore print · White
Snakeskin Grisette
Gilled
A large ringless Amanita whose bronze-brown cap carries ragged grey veil patches and whose stem is wrapped in snakeskin-like grey bands above a crumbling volva.
Spore print · White
Lepiota brunneoincarnata
Gilled
A small dapperling of grassy, disturbed ground whose pale cap is broken into concentric zones of pinkish to vinaceous-brown scales, with fibrous girdles on the lower stem and no true ring.
Spore print · White
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
Milking Bonnet
Gilled
A small grey-brown bonnet of woodland litter whose slender stem releases a white milky drop when snapped. Blackish and pure white colour forms occur alongside the typical grey.
Spore print · White
Smoky Spindles
Corals & Clubs
A grassland club fungus forming dense tufts of slim, unbranched, smoke-grey to pale pinkish-grey spindles that are hollow and very brittle. It is one of the classic indicator fungi of ancient, low-fertility turf.
Spore print · White
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)
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)
Glue Crust
Crusts
A thin grey-brown crust on hazel, famous for cementing a dead branch to a living one so that it stays suspended in the canopy.
Spore print · White
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
Brown Birch Bolete
Boletes
The commonest of the scaber stalks, a tall grey-brown bolete of birch woodland with a slender stem roughened by dark scaly tufts.
Spore print · Snuff-brown
White Spindles
Corals & Clubs
Clusters of slender, brittle, pure white unbranched clubs that grow in tight tufts among moss and short grass. They snap at the slightest pressure, giving the species its name.
Spore print · White
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)
Deer Mushroom
Gilled
A soft grey-brown wood-dwelling mushroom with free gills that turn pink as they mature, no ring and no volva, and a pink spore print.
Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink
Scarlet Bonnet
Gilled
A small bonnet with a coral-pink to scarlet conical cap that fades towards orange-pink with age, carried on a slender pale stem. It fruits among mosses, grasses and conifer needles.
Spore print · White
Ergot
Other Fungi
A grass fungus that replaces a floret with a hard, curved purple-black horn projecting from the ear, which the following spring sprouts tiny pink drumstick-shaped fruiting heads.
Spore print · Not applicable (sclerotium, not a spore print)
Dog Lichen
Other Fungi
A large foliose lichen with broad grey-brown lobes, a downy upper surface, and a white veined underside bearing long shaggy rhizines.
Spore print · Not applicable
Mycena chlorophos
Gilled
A minute, translucent grey bonnet of humid Asian and Pacific forests, famous for the pale green light its gills and cap emit after dark.
Spore print · White
Smooth Rock Tripe
Other Fungi
A broad, leathery brown lichen that hangs from shaded rock faces by a single central holdfast, curling and crisping to grey-brown when dry.
Spore print · Not applicable