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 “Panther Cap”
Early Morel
Morels & Allies
A thimble-capped spring ascomycete whose longitudinally wrinkled, tan to yellow-brown cap hangs free from the very top of the stalk like a bell. The stalk is stuffed with loose cottony pith rather than being hollow.
Spore print · Pale yellow to cream
Fishy Milkcap
Gilled
A firm, apricot-orange milkcap that bleeds copious white latex and stains every damaged surface rich brown. Its strong shellfish-like odour, developing with age, is the quickest field character.
Spore print · White
Cedarwood Waxcap
Gilled
A small pure-white grassland waxcap with broadly decurrent gills and a distinctive scent of cedar pencil shavings.
Spore print · White
Painted Suillus
Boletes
A striking bolete clothed in shaggy brick-red scales over a yellow ground, with large radially arranged yellow pores. It grows only with five-needle pines.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Crimson Waxcap
Gilled
The largest of the red waxcaps, with a deep blood-crimson greasy cap, thick waxy yellow-red gills and a fibrous streaky stipe that is distinctly white at the very base.
Spore print · White
Scarlet Waxcap
Gilled
A small, vividly blood-red grassland mushroom with thick, waxy, broadly attached gills and a smooth red stem, one of the classic waxcaps of ancient short turf.
Spore print · White
Pink Waxcap
Gilled
An unmistakable rose-pink to lilac waxcap whose sharply conical cap splits and flares upward like a ballerina's skirt above a white fibrous stem.
Spore print · White
Coconut Milkcap
Gilled
A small greyish-lilac birch associate with a dry, finely felty cap and decurrent buff gills. Its powerful coconut-like aroma, strongest in drying material, is the defining character.
Spore print · Pale cream
Fairy Inkcap
Gilled
A tiny pleated inkcap that fruits in swarming troops of hundreds around hardwood stumps, its pale buff bonnet-shaped caps carried on thread-thin white stems.
Spore print · Blackish brown
Orange Grisette
Gilled
A tall ringless Amanita with a glowing apricot-orange cap, free white gills and a stem banded with orange-cream chevrons above a large white membranous sac.
Spore print · White
Pine Bolete
Boletes
A dark red-brown member of the porcini group tied to pine and spruce, with a bumpy matte cap and a stout stipe bearing a reddish-tinged net over a brown ground.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Porcelain Fungus
Gilled
Glistening white, almost translucent caps coated in thick slime, clustered high on dead and dying beech, with a distinct ring on the slender white stem.
Spore print · White
Pig's Ears
Cups & Discs
A large reddish-brown ascomycete that begins as a deep cup and flattens into a wrinkled, ear-like saucer on decaying conifer wood. Its short ribbed stub of a stalk and pale, scurfy underside separate it from the true cup fungi.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Bell Morel
Morels & Allies
A thimble fungus with a smooth to faintly wrinkled brown bell-shaped cap attached only at the top of a slender pale stalk. The free-hanging margin and pith-filled stalk separate it from the true morels.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
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
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
Manzanita Bolete
Boletes
A large western North American scaber stalk with a deep red-brown, often sticky cap, coarse black scabers on a white stem, and flesh that greys and blackens when cut.
Spore print · Ochre-brown
Umbrella Polypore
Polypores
A large branched cluster bearing dozens of small circular grey-brown caps, each with its own central stalk, growing from an underground tuber near hardwood roots.
Spore print · White
Brown Mottlegill
Gilled
One of the commonest small brown mushrooms of mown lawns, with a two-tone drying cap and mottled dark brown gills that give a dark brown rather than black spore print.
Spore print · Dark brown
Violet Webcap
Gilled
A large, sombre, dark violet woodland mushroom with a dry felty cap, violet gills that rust over with maturity, and a cobwebby veil linking cap margin to stem.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Yellowleg Bonnet
Gilled
A small bonnet with a slimy, peelable cap skin and a slender, sticky, bright lemon-yellow stem. The elastic separable pellicle on cap and gill edge is its defining feature.
Spore print · White
Velvet Shank
Gilled
A tufted orange-capped mushroom with a slimy cap and a distinctive dark, velvety stem base, fruiting on hardwood stumps in the coldest months. The contrast between the bright cap and near-black stem is the giveaway.
Spore print · White
Veiled Oyster
Gilled
A stout, thick-fleshed white oyster with a felty-scaly cap surface and a partial veil that leaves a fringed cap margin or a fleeting ring on the off-centre stipe. It fruits singly or in small groups from wounds on standing hardwoods.
Spore print · White
Panaeolus antillarum
Gilled
A comparatively large, pale-capped dung mottlegill of warm regions, with a smooth whitish to cream cap that cracks in dry weather and heavily mottled blackening gills.
Spore print · Black