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 “Rooting Shank”
Green Elf Cup
Cups & Discs
A minute turquoise cup fungus whose mycelium dyes rotting hardwood a vivid blue-green; the stained wood is far more often seen than the fruiting bodies.
Spore print · White
Common Powderhorn Lichen
Other Fungi
A Cladonia of tree bases and rotting stumps whose slender grey-green podetia taper to blunt points and are coated in fine flour-like soredia, rarely forming cups.
Spore print · Not applicable
Flame Shield
Gilled
A rare and vivid shield mushroom with a scarlet to orange cap that fades to yellow, free gills turning pink, and a slender pale stem yellowing at the base. It fruits on rotting hardwood.
Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink
Toothed Jelly Fungus
Jellies
A translucent, rubbery, tongue-shaped fungus on rotting conifer wood whose underside is covered in soft gelatinous spines. It is the only jelly fungus with a genuinely toothed fertile surface.
Spore print · White
Artillery Fungus
Other Fungi
A pinhead-sized fungus that splits into a tiny orange star and fires a single dark spore ball several metres into the air. It swarms over damp bark mulch and rotting wood.
Spore print · Not applicable (spores in one ejected ball)
Flat Oysterling
Gilled
A small, white to buff, flattened fan-shaped bracket on rotting hardwood, whose brown spore print and finely lined, radiating gills separate it from all the white-spored oyster relatives.
Spore print · Pale brown
Pear-shaped Puffball
Puffballs
A small, smooth, pear-shaped puffball that fruits in crowded troops directly on rotting stumps and logs, joined at the base by conspicuous white mycelial cords. It is the only common puffball reliably found on wood.
Spore print · Olive-brown (spore mass)
Yellowfoot
Gilled
A slender late-season funnel fungus with a brown perforated cap, greyish blunt ridges and a hollow, bright yellow stalk. It carpets mossy conifer floors and well-rotted wood in large troops.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Brick Cap
Gilled
A clustering wood-rotting fungus with a brick-red cap fading to buff at the rim, pale gills that age to greyish purple-brown, and a rusty-based stem with only a faint fibrous ring zone.
Spore print · Purple-brown
Train Wrecker
Gilled
A tough, cream-coloured agaric patterned with flat brown scales, whose deeply decurrent gills have coarsely sawn edges; it is famous for rotting railway sleepers and other conifer timber.
Spore print · White
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
Devil's Dipstick
Stinkhorns
A slim, tapering, orange to pinkish stinkhorn with no distinct cap, its pointed upper third coated in dark olive spore slime. It rises from a white egg in mulch and rotting hardwood debris.
Spore print · Not applicable
Hooded False Morel
Morels & Allies
An autumn false morel whose tan to dark reddish-brown cap is folded into a two- or three-lobed saddle or mitre rather than a brain. It grows on well-rotted conifer wood and woody debris.
Spore print · White to pale yellowish
Candlesnuff Fungus
Other Fungi
A small upright wood-rotting fungus whose black, flattened clubs are dusted white at the tips, giving the look of a freshly snuffed candle wick. It is one of the most common and longest-lasting fungi on old hardwood stumps.
Spore print · Black
Dead Man's Fingers
Other Fungi
Swollen black clubs standing upright from decaying hardwood stumps like blackened fingers, tough and carbon-crusted outside with startling white flesh inside. It is a wood-rotting flask fungus present year-round.
Spore print · Black