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 Orange Polypore

Dryad's Saddle

Dryad's Saddle

Polypores

A large fan-shaped bracket patterned with concentric brown scales like a pheasant's plumage, set on a short off-centre stem with a black base.

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

Blushing Bracket

Blushing Bracket

Polypores

A flat, radially wrinkled bracket in reddish and tan bands whose pale maze-like underside flushes distinctly pink-red wherever it is touched.

Spore print · White

Artist's Conk

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

Beefsteak Fungus

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

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

Coprinellus radians

Gilled

A small tawny inkcap recognised less by the mushroom than by the conspicuous rusty-orange felted mat of mycelium, called an ozonium, that spreads across the wood beneath it.

Spore print · Blackish brown

Red-capped Scaber Stalk

Boletes

A robust scaber stalk with a vivid orange-red cap whose skin overhangs the rim, and white flesh that darkens dramatically through wine-red to grey-black when cut.

Spore print · Ochre-brown

Redlead Roundhead

Redlead Roundhead

Gilled

An unmistakable scarlet to orange-red mushroom of woodchip mulch, with a sticky cap, whitish fibrillose stem and dark purple-brown gills.

Spore print · Purple-brown

Golden Cup

Cups & Discs

A vivid orange spring cup fungus of conifer duff whose margins and bruised areas stain a distinctive blue-green. It is one of the earliest fungi to appear at the edge of retreating snow.

Spore print · White

Smooth Chanterelle

Gilled

A bright orange-yellow chanterelle whose underside is almost completely smooth, with only faint wrinkles instead of the usual forking ridges. It is a common summer fungus of eastern oak woodlands.

Spore print · Pale yellow to yellowish-cream

Flame Shield

Flame Shield

Gilled

A rare and vivid shield mushroom with a scarlet to orange cap that fades to yellow, free gills turning pink, and a slender pale stem yellowing at the base. It fruits on rotting hardwood.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink

Fool's Webcap

Fool's Webcap

Gilled

A warm foxy-brown webcap of southern broadleaf woodland with thick, widely spaced saffron-rust gills and a plain yellowish stem carrying only faint cobwebby veil fibres.

Spore print · Rusty brown

False Chanterelle

False Chanterelle

Gilled

A soft orange funnel-capped mushroom with crowded, repeatedly forked, deeply decurrent true gills and a white spore print. Despite the chanterelle-like shape it belongs to the bolete order, not the chanterelles.

Spore print · White to cream

Saffrondrop Bonnet

Gilled

A slender woodland bonnet whose broken stem releases vivid saffron-orange latex that stains everything it touches. It is closely tied to beech leaf litter on lime-rich ground.

Spore print · White

Fragrant Chanterelle

Gilled

A vivid orange trumpet-shaped fungus that grows in dense fused clusters from a common base, with a nearly smooth underside and a powerful sweet aroma.

Spore print · Pale yellow to cream

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

Golden Coral

Corals & Clubs

A large, richly golden branched coral rising from a short whitish trunk, fruiting from soil in broadleaf woodland. Branch and tip colour is nearly uniform, without pink or salmon tones.

Spore print · Pale ochre-yellow

Wrinkled Crust

Crusts

A waxy salmon to purplish-orange crust whose centre is thrown into radiating folds and warts, with a paler smooth fringe at the edge.

Spore print · White

Jack O'Lantern Mushroom

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

Rose Rust

Other Fungi

A rose-specific rust that speckles leaf undersides with orange pustules from late spring, replacing them with sooty black telia by autumn.

Spore print · Not applicable (orange then black spore masses)

Tawny Grisette

Tawny Grisette

Gilled

A slim, ringless, foxy orange-brown Amanita of acid woodland and heath, with free white gills and a tall white sac at the base stained rusty brown.

Spore print · White

False Saffron Milkcap

False Saffron Milkcap

Gilled

An orange spruce-associated milkcap whose carrot-coloured latex turns wine-red within half an hour and whose flesh and cap green strongly with age.

Spore print · Pale cream

Saffron Milkcap

Saffron Milkcap

Gilled

A pine-associated milkcap with a concentrically zoned carrot-orange funnel cap, decurrent orange gills, carrot-coloured latex and a pitted stem, the whole fungus staining dull green where damaged.

Spore print · Pale ochre to buff