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 “Honey Fungus / Honey Mushroom”
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
Hoof Fungus
Polypores
A hard, grey, hoof-shaped perennial bracket banded with concentric ridges, growing high on birch and beech trunks and adding a new pore layer each year.
Spore print · White to pale yellowish
Candlesnuff Fungus
Other Fungi
A small upright wood-rotting fungus whose black, flattened clubs are dusted white at the tips, giving the look of a freshly snuffed candle wick. It is one of the most common and longest-lasting fungi on old hardwood stumps.
Spore print · Black
Beefsteak Fungus
Polypores
A soft, moist, blood-red tongue-shaped bracket on oak, unique among polypores in having individually separate tubes rather than a fused pore layer.
Spore print · Pale pinkish-brown
Eastern Cauliflower Mushroom
Other Fungi
A large cream rosette built from broad, flat, concentrically zoned leaf-like lobes, growing at the base of oaks and other hardwoods in eastern North America.
Spore print · White to pale yellow
Scaly Wood Mushroom
Gilled
A tall woodland Agaricus clothed in dark reddish-brown fibrous scales, whose white flesh turns vivid blood-red within seconds of being cut. Fruits in conifer and mixed forest litter.
Spore print · Dark brown
Brown Field Mushroom
Gilled
A squat, firm coastal Agaricus with a brown-scaled cap and an exceptionally thick, short stipe. It favours sandy grassland and dune systems near the sea.
Spore print · Dark brown
Sky Blue Mushroom
Gilled
A small, intensely indigo-blue forest mushroom whose gills flush salmon-pink as its angular pink spores mature.
Spore print · Pink
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
Pink Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
A tropical and subtropical oyster mushroom forming rosettes of thin salmon-pink to rose fans on dead hardwood, the colour fading to buff as the fruit bodies mature.
Spore print · Pale pink to whitish
Aspen Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
A North American oyster mushroom restricted to dead aspen and cottonwood, with pale fleshy caps in overlapping shelves and a buff-tinted rather than lilac spore print.
Spore print · White to pale buff
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
Fairy Ring Mushroom
Gilled
A small, tough-stemmed grassland mushroom with a tan, broadly umbonate cap and widely spaced pale gills, famous for growing in expanding rings and arcs on lawns and pasture.
Spore print · White
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
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
Rosy Wood Mushroom
Gilled
A delicate, small-statured Agaricus with pinkish-lilac fibrils over a cream cap and a stipe base that flushes chrome yellow when handled. It fruits in woodland and park litter.
Spore print · Dark brown
Black Poplar Mushroom
Gilled
A clustered brown-spored wood mushroom with a smooth two-toned cap that cracks in dry weather, a pale fibrous stipe and a persistent membranous ring.
Spore print · Tobacco 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
St. George's Mushroom
Gilled
A thick, cream-coloured spring grassland mushroom with crowded white gills, a stout ringless stipe and a strong mealy odour. It often grows in arcs and rings along hedge banks and downland turf.
Spore print · White
White Button Mushroom
Gilled
The familiar rounded white Agaricus with free gills that shift from pale pink to dark brown and a soft ring on the stipe. Wild forms grow on rich, composted or manured ground rather than on wood.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Elm Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
A firm, pale, smooth-capped mushroom that grows from wounds on standing elms and maples, distinguished from true oysters by its stout central-to-eccentric stipe and gills that are notched rather than long-decurrent.
Spore print · White
Phoenix Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
The warm-season oyster mushroom, with paler, thinner, more lung-shaped caps than the common oyster and a more clearly developed lateral stem.
Spore print · White to pale lilac-grey
Branched Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
A cream to ochre oyster mushroom with deeply funnel-shaped caps growing in branched bouquets, identified by gills that run down the stem and fuse into a raised network.
Spore print · White to pale lilac