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 “Hoof Fungus (Iceman Fungus)”
Crowded Parchment
Crusts
Dense masses of small, thin, orange-tan fans that fuse along their edges to sheathe fallen hardwood twigs and branches. The underside is smooth and unbroken, with no pores or wrinkles.
Spore print · White
Columned Stinkhorn
Stinkhorns
A warm-climate stinkhorn built from two to five thick orange columns that are free at the base and joined in an arch at the top, with dark spore slime on the inner faces of the arch.
Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)
Native Bread
Polypores
An Australian polypore whose small funnel-shaped cap rises on a stalk from a large, hard, marbled underground sclerotium buried in forest soil.
Spore print · White
Iceland Moss
Other Fungi
An erect, tufted lichen of arctic and mountain heaths with curled chestnut-brown straps whose margins are fringed with tiny stiff spines.
Spore print · Not applicable
Willow Bracket
Polypores
A rock-hard perennial hoof on willow and other broadleaves, grey to black and deeply cracked above with a rusty brown pore surface and layered annual tubes inside.
Spore print · White
Ceramic Parchment
Crusts
A hard, long-lived crust that breaks into small pale tiles separated by dark cracks, looking exactly like crazed ceramic glaze on bare oak wood.
Spore print · White
Magpie Inkcap
Gilled
A tall, dramatic inkcap whose blackish-brown cap is broken into a pied pattern by large white felty veil patches. It stands singly in deep beech litter on lime-rich soils and dissolves into black ink within a day.
Spore print · Black
White Coral Jelly
Jellies
A cluster of thin, translucent white gelatinous lobes that fan out from dead branches like a frozen flower or a piece of crumpled tissue. Its near-colourless, seaweed-like fronds set it apart from every other jelly fungus.
Spore print · White
Green Elfcup
Cups & Discs
A tiny turquoise cup fungus whose mycelium stains rotting hardwood a vivid blue-green. The stain is visible all year, while the small stalked saucers appear mainly in damp autumn weather.
Spore print · White
Meadow Coral
Corals & Clubs
A yellow to apricot grassland coral whose slender branches fork repeatedly into blunt antler tips above a distinctly white, downy base. Common in mossy, unimproved turf.
Spore print · White
Toad's Ear
Cups & Discs
The darkest of the ear fungi, forming robust dark brown to almost blackish ear-shaped cups split down one side on woodland soil.
Spore print · White
Yellowing Curtain Crust
Crusts
A tiered bracket-forming crust with a velvety, concentrically zoned upper surface and a smooth pale underside that stains distinctly yellow where it is scratched. The yellow bruising is its defining field character.
Spore print · White
Hairy Rubber Cup
Cups & Discs
A tough, rubbery goblet with a smooth reddish-brown disc set inside a blackish, densely bristly cup. Its gelatinous-rubbery texture is unlike that of any other brown woodland cup.
Spore print · White
Golden Ear
Jellies
A deep golden-orange jelly fungus forming firm, ear- or petal-shaped lobes on hardwood, always accompanied by the hairy brackets of Stereum hirsutum, the host it parasitises.
Spore print · White
Bleeding Oak Crust
Crusts
An oak-loving crust that spreads over dead wood and turns out small hairy tan brackets along its edge, releasing red droplets from a scratch on fresh tissue. It is thinner and more clearly reflexed than its broadleaf relatives.
Spore print · White
Cauliflower Mushroom
Corals & Clubs
A large cream-coloured rosette of flattened, crimped, ribbon-like lobes that grows at the base of conifers, resembling a cauliflower head or a bath sponge.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Artist's Conk
Polypores
A large perennial shelf fungus with a hard, lumpy grey-brown crust and a chalk-white pore surface that instantly bruises dark brown where scratched, the feature behind its name.
Spore print · Brown
Pine Conk
Polypores
A woody, perennial bracket that forms hard hoof-shaped conks on the trunks of standing conifers, recognised by its cracked brown upper crust and irregular, maze-like yellow-brown pores.
Spore print · Yellowish brown
Grey Coral
Corals & Clubs
A small, ash-grey to lilac-grey branched coral of woodland soil, with rather thick, blunt-tipped branches and a white spore print.
Spore print · White
Oak Mazegill
Polypores
A thick, corky, dull-coloured bracket on oak whose underside is carved into a deep labyrinth of thick-walled winding channels.
Spore print · White
Wrinkled Club
Corals & Clubs
A white club fungus with thick, irregularly wrinkled and grooved stems that are unbranched or only sparsely forked. It grows from soil in woodland, often along shaded path edges.
Spore print · White
Moose Antlers
Cups & Discs
Clusters of tall, ear- or antler-shaped rubbery blades rising from a hard underground mass in rich eastern North American hardwood forest.
Spore print · Brownish
Yellow Brain
Jellies
A vivid golden-yellow jelly fungus that erupts in brain-like folded lobes from dead hardwood twigs, shrivelling to a hard crust in dry weather and swelling again after rain.
Spore print · White
Silky Parchment
Crusts
A small, thin, pale fan-shaped crust with a distinctly silky, finely lined upper surface and a smooth whitish underside. It is most often found on the slim dead branches of hornbeam and its relatives.
Spore print · White