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 Parasol Mushroom

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

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

Paddy Straw Mushroom

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

King Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

The heaviest of the oyster mushrooms, with a small greyish-tan cap perched on a thick club-shaped white stem, growing from the dead root crowns of umbellifers in dry grassland.

Spore print · White to pale cream

American Caesar's Mushroom

American Caesar's Mushroom

Gilled

A brilliant red-to-orange Amanita of eastern North American oak and pine woods, with yellow gills, a yellow-orange skirt ring and a thick white sac at the base.

Spore print · White

Parasola auricoma

Gilled

A delicate pleated inkcap of mulch and path edges whose young cap carries scattered stiff brown hairs, visible with a hand lens, that give the species its golden-haired name.

Spore print · Black

Plantpot Dapperling

Plantpot Dapperling

Gilled

A vivid lemon-yellow little parasol that appears overnight in the compost of houseplants and greenhouse pots. Its powdery cap opens into a deeply pleated disc on a slender yellow stem and collapses within a day.

Spore print · White

Pleated Inkcap

Gilled

A tiny, exquisitely pleated grey mushroom that opens like a paper parasol on lawns after rain and collapses by the afternoon. Its gills attach to a collar rather than the stipe.

Spore print · Black

Chestnut Dapperling

Gilled

A small woodland dapperling whose pale cap is broken into fine, dark chestnut-brown granular scales arranged in rough concentric rings, on a slender stem sheathed with the same rusty scaling below a vanishing ring.

Spore print · White

White Dapperling

Gilled

A clean white grassland mushroom with a smooth unscaled cap, free gills that flush pale pink with age, a movable ring and a slightly swollen base without any sac.

Spore print · White to faintly pinkish

Stinking Dapperling

Stinking Dapperling

Gilled

A small white dapperling whose cap carries a smooth reddish-brown central disc surrounded by rings of small brown scales. It grows in troops on lawns, verges and woodland margins and has a sharp rubbery odour.

Spore print · White

Red-tinged Lepiota

Gilled

A slim, neatly built parasol whose reddish cuticle splits outward from a dark reddish-brown centre into fine coppery streaks over a white cap. The stem is smooth, white and hollow with a thin movable ring.

Spore print · White

Shiitake

Gilled

A tough-fleshed wood-rotting agaric with a dry brown cap that cracks into a pale crazed pattern, white notched gills and a fibrous, off-centre stem with a fleeting ring zone.

Spore print · White

Poplar Fieldcap

Poplar Fieldcap

Gilled

A clustering trunk-dwelling mushroom with a tan cap that wrinkles and cracks with age, cinnamon-brown gills, and a tough pale stem carrying a persistent spore-stained ring.

Spore print · Dull tobacco brown

Salt-loving Agaricus

Gilled

A dense, thick-fleshed white Agaricus of salty ground, with a cap that cracks into coarse patches, reddening flesh, a sheathing ring and a briny odour.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown

Psathyrella aquatica

Gilled

A small brown-capped brittlestem remarkable for producing its fruit bodies fully submerged in flowing cold water, first documented in a spring-fed river in Oregon.

Spore print · Dark brown to blackish brown

Yellow Stainer

Yellow Stainer

Gilled

A white Agaricus that flushes instant bright chrome-yellow when the cap margin is rubbed or the stem base is cut, and carries a distinctive ink-like odour. Young caps often have a flat-topped, squared-off profile.

Spore print · Dark chocolate-brown