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 “Peziza 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)
Red Coral
Corals & Clubs
A brilliantly red to scarlet branched coral of Pacific conifer forests, growing from deep needle duff. Some forms carry contrasting yellow branch tips.
Spore print · Pale yellow
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
Horsehair Parachute
Gilled
A pinhead-sized brown parachute perched on a stiff black hair, often accompanied by tangles of black horsehair-like cords running through the needle litter.
Spore print · White
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
Blistered Cup
Cups & Discs
A stout pale ochre cup that grows in crowded tiers on compost, straw and manured ground, its inner surface swollen into distinctive bubble-like blisters. The margin stays strongly inrolled and the outside is whitish and mealy.
Spore print · White
Yellow-juice Cup
Cups & Discs
A dull grey-brown woodland cup whose brittle flesh releases a watery juice that turns bright yellow within moments of being cut.
Spore print · White
Dyer's Polypore
Polypores
A large, velvety, concentrically zoned rosette at the foot of conifers, rusty brown at the centre with a vivid yellow growing edge and olive-yellow pores that bruise dark brown.
Spore print · White to pale yellow
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Witch's Butter
Jellies
A vivid golden-yellow jelly fungus forming convoluted, brain-like blobs on dead branches, most conspicuous in wet winter weather. It is a parasite of crust fungi living in the same wood.
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
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