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 “Possibly a species of Pluteus or a related genus”
Black Trumpet
Other Fungi
A thin, hollow, vase-shaped fungus in dark grey to almost black, with a smooth or faintly wrinkled outer fertile surface and no true gills. It grows in dense troops in deep leaf litter, where its colouring makes it remarkably hard to see.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Veiled Lady
Stinkhorns
The most spectacular stinkhorn, with a delicate white lace veil that unfurls from beneath the conical head and may hang almost to the ground. A tropical and subtropical species of rich soil and bamboo litter.
Spore print · Olive-brown (spores in the slimy gleba)
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
Conifer Mazegill
Polypores
A tough rust-brown bracket with a bright orange growing margin and an underside of thick, radiating, ochre-brown gill-like plates.
Spore print · White
Shield Pinkgill
Gilled
A spring-fruiting pinkgill of hedgerows and orchards, with a grey-brown shield-shaped cap and a strict association with rose-family shrubs and trees.
Spore print · Pink
Copper Brittlegill
Gilled
A sturdy orange-brown brittlegill of northern pine woods whose white flesh and stipe turn ash-grey and finally blackish as the fruiting body ages.
Spore print · Pale ochre
Hexagonal-pored Polypore
Polypores
A thin, orange-tinted polypore of fallen hardwood twigs whose underside is a striking honeycomb of very large, radially stretched hexagonal pores.
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
Flame Mycena
Gilled
A brilliant scarlet to flame-orange bonnet of western North American conifer duff, with orange gills edged in red and a tuft of orange fibrils at the stem base.
Spore print · White
Persistent Waxcap
Gilled
A bright yellow to apricot-orange waxcap with a sharply pointed cap that keeps its colour instead of blackening with age.
Spore print · White
Rosy Crust
Crusts
A thin waxy crust in warm salmon-pink to coral-orange shades, spreading along dead attached twigs of hazel, oak and gorse.
Spore print · White
Aspen Scaber Stalk
Boletes
A North American scaber stalk of aspen groves, with an orange-brown cap, dark scabers even when young, and pale flesh that greys and takes on lilac tones when cut.
Spore print · Ochre-brown
Western Gall Rust
Other Fungi
A rust of hard pines that swells branches into round woody galls which split each spring and release clouds of bright orange spores.
Spore print · Not applicable (orange spore masses)
Coccora
Gilled
A large, handsome Pacific coast amanita with a deep orange-brown cap that usually carries one thick, felty white patch of veil, a lined margin, and a deep sac-like volva.
Spore print · White
Spectacular Rustgill
Gilled
A big, showy orange-tawny agaric that fruits in massive clusters at the base of broadleaf stumps, with a fibrillose scaly cap, ringed stipe and rusty orange spore print.
Spore print · Rusty orange-brown
Lion's Mane
Toothed
An unmistakable white cushion of long, downward-hanging spines that grows from wounds on standing hardwoods, looking like a frozen waterfall or a shaggy mane.
Spore print · White
Lurid Bolete
Boletes
A red-pored bolete of limy soils recognised by the coarse red network covering its stipe and by the thin orange-red line revealed just above the tubes when the fruit body is cut lengthways.
Spore print · Olive-brown
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)
White Pine Blister Rust
Other Fungi
A two-host rust that raises orange, blister-like sacs on the bark of five-needle pines and clothes currant leaf undersides with yellow pustules and hair-like brown columns.
Spore print · Not applicable (orange-yellow spore masses)
Terracotta Hedgehog
Toothed
A small orange-buff hedgehog fungus whose cap underside carries crowded brittle spines instead of gills. It is slimmer and distinctly warmer in colour than the common Wood Hedgehog.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Inocybe erubescens
Gilled
A stout, silky white fibrecap of chalky beech and lime woods that reddens conspicuously where handled or aged. Its spring fruiting and radially split cap are characteristic.
Spore print · Clay brown
Reishi
Polypores
A hard, kidney-shaped bracket with a strikingly glossy, varnished-looking reddish-mahogany surface, a pale cream pore underside and often a lateral or eccentric stalk.
Spore print · Brown
Shaggy Bracket
Polypores
A large, thick, coarsely shaggy bracket that starts bright rusty orange and ages through dark brown to black, growing high on the trunks of living broadleaved trees.
Spore print · Yellowish brown
Parrot Waxcap
Gilled
A small, wholly glutinous waxcap that emerges bottle-green and then fades through yellow, orange and pink, usually keeping a green flush at the top of the slimy stem.
Spore print · White