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 Red-Capped Butter Bolete

Red Cage

Red Cage

Stinkhorns

A startling stinkhorn that hatches from a whitish egg as a hollow, spherical cage of coral-red spongy arms, with dark olive spore slime lining the inner faces of the mesh.

Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)

Red Coral

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

Two-colored Bolete

Two-colored Bolete

Boletes

A handsome eastern North American oak bolete with a rose-red dry cap, bright yellow pores that bruise slowly blue, and a red stipe with a yellow apex and no net.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Chrome-footed Bolete

Chrome-footed Bolete

Boletes

A striking pink-capped bolete whose white stipe is dotted with pink scabers above and washed brilliant chrome-yellow at the base. The pore surface is white, ageing pink.

Spore print · Pinkish-brown

Scarlet-stemmed Bolete

Scarlet-stemmed Bolete

Boletes

A robust bolete with a pale felted cap, lemon pores that flash blue at a touch, and a stout stalk netted carmine-red over yellow.

Spore print · Olive-brown

White King Bolete

White King Bolete

Boletes

A pale, almost white-capped king bolete of the American Southwest, growing with ponderosa pine and oak. Whitish stipe with a fine white net and unchanging white flesh.

Spore print · Olive-brown

White Birch Bolete

White Birch Bolete

Boletes

A ghostly pale scaber stalk of wet birch bogs, almost white overall with soft watery flesh and a faint greenish tinge to the cap and stem base.

Spore print · Pale snuff-brown

Spring King Bolete

Spring King Bolete

Boletes

A western North American porcini relative that fruits in clustered groups near melting snow in mountain conifer forest, often half-buried with a soil-crusted reddish-brown cap.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Orange Birch Bolete

Orange Birch Bolete

Boletes

A tall, striking bolete with a bright orange felty cap, a white stipe studded with blackish scabers, and white flesh that turns pinkish-grey and then near-black when cut. It grows only with birch.

Spore print · Ochre-brown

Ornate-stalked Bolete

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

Violet-gray Bolete

Violet-gray Bolete

Boletes

A handsome bolete with a deep violet-purple cap and matching stipe, white pores that age pink, and unchanging white flesh. A common oak associate in eastern North America.

Spore print · Pinkish-brown

Lilac-brown Bolete

Lilac-brown Bolete

Boletes

A dark, softly purple-brown bolete whose pore surface is purple-grey from the start and whose stipe is densely peppered with fine dark purplish dots.

Spore print · Reddish-brown to pinkish-brown

Brown Birch Bolete

Brown Birch Bolete

Boletes

The commonest of the scaber stalks, a tall grey-brown bolete of birch woodland with a slender stem roughened by dark scaly tufts.

Spore print · Snuff-brown

Black Velvet Bolete

Black Velvet Bolete

Boletes

A dramatic bolete with a velvety black cap and stipe over a white pore surface. Cut flesh flushes pink then slowly turns grey to black.

Spore print · Pinkish-brown

Ash-tree Bolete

Ash-tree Bolete

Boletes

An unusual bolete found only near ash trees, with an off-centre stipe and a shallow, vein-like yellow pore surface that radiates outward like gill folds.

Spore print · Olive-brown to yellow-brown

Red Edge Brittlestem

Red Edge Brittlestem

Gilled

A delicate brittlestem with a small bell-shaped cap on a long, thread-like white stem, and gills whose edges are flushed pink to reddish. The stem base often tapers into a rooting point.

Spore print · Blackish purple-brown

Red Pinwheel Marasmius

Red Pinwheel Marasmius

Gilled

A miniature pinwheel with a rose-pink to reddish-purple grooved cap and a shining blackish thread of a stem, scattered across damp woodland litter.

Spore print · White

Red-tinged Lepiota

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

Red Banded Webcap

Red Banded Webcap

Gilled

A large brick-coloured birch webcap, instantly known by the two to five bright cinnabar-red belts wrapped around its stout club-shaped stipe.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Red-belted Conk

Red-belted Conk

Polypores

A tough perennial bracket recognised by a shiny resinous crust banded in red-orange with a cream to white growing edge, and a hard white context. It is among the most abundant decay fungi of conifer logs in northern forests.

Spore print · White

Red Cage Fungus

Red Cage Fungus

Stinkhorns

A stinkhorn that emerges from a white egg as a hollow, red, net-like sphere, its inner arms smeared with olive-brown spore slime. It is common in mulched garden beds and disturbed ground in warm-temperate regions.

Spore print · Not applicable

Hollow-stemmed Larch Bolete

Hollow-stemmed Larch Bolete

Boletes

A dry, shaggy brown larch bolete with large radiating yellow pores and a uniquely hollow, chambered stalk. Cutting the stem lengthways confirms it instantly.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Big Red False Morel

Big Red False Morel

Morels & Allies

One of the largest false morels, with a dark reddish-brown head packed with deep interconnected wrinkles on a massive white furrowed stalk. It fruits in spring in bottomland hardwood forest of the central and southeastern United States.

Spore print · White to pale yellowish

Wine Cap

Wine Cap

Gilled

A large mulch-bed mushroom with a wine-red cap fading to tan, purple-grey gills, and an unmistakable thick white ring whose upper surface splits into radiating cogwheel spokes.

Spore print · Dark purple-brown to purple-black