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 “Chicken of the Woods”
Common Jellyspot
Jellies
Minute orange-yellow jelly blobs scattered in numbers over damp dead wood and old fence posts, among the most frequently encountered of all small fungi.
Spore print · Whitish to pale yellow
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
Common Rustgill
Gilled
An abundant orange-tawny wood-rotter of conifer plantations, identified by its smooth dry cap, yellow gills that become freckled with rust spots, and rusty spore print.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Common Ink Cap
Gilled
A clustered grey inkcap with an egg- to bell-shaped, faintly scaly cap that splits at the grooved margin and dissolves upward into black liquid, growing in tufts from buried wood.
Spore print · Black
Deadly Galerina
Gilled
A small brown wood-dwelling mushroom with a hygrophanous tawny cap, a membranous ring on a smooth stem, and a rusty-brown spore print.
Spore print · Rusty brown
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
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)
Birch Brittlegill
Gilled
A small, delicate brittlegill with a pale rosy or almost white cap, found only with birch on wet acid ground. Its thin flesh and grooved margin make it one of the frailest of the genus.
Spore print · White
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
Piggyback Rosegill
Gilled
A small white silky mushroom with a sac-like volva that grows directly out of the decaying caps of Clouded Funnel. Its free gills turn pink and it is one of the few fungicolous agarics.
Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink
Yellow Stagshorn
Jellies
Bright orange-yellow antler-shaped branches with a tough, gelatinous, rubbery texture, rooting into buried conifer wood by a deep tapering base.
Spore print · White to pale yellow
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
Upright Coral
Corals & Clubs
A tan to ochre coral fungus whose narrow branches rise almost perfectly parallel and vertical from a wood-anchored base. White cords at the base and a brownish bruising reaction are typical.
Spore print · Pale yellow to ochre
Beech Mushroom
Gilled
A tightly clustered wood mushroom with small tan caps marked by pale mottled spots and firm white stipes fused at a common base, fruiting on beech and other hardwood trunks in autumn.
Spore print · White
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
Pink-tipped Coral
Corals & Clubs
A stout, cauliflower-shaped coral fungus with a thick white trunk and crowded branches whose tips are washed pink to wine-red. It grows from soil in broadleaf woodland and is one of the bulkiest of the branched fungi.
Spore print · Pale ochre-yellow
Galerina marginata
Gilled
A small, ringed, tawny-brown wood-rotting agaric with a strongly hygrophanous cap and a rusty spore print, fruiting in troops on decaying logs and mossy stumps.
Spore print · Rust-brown
Destructive Pholiota
Gilled
A large, heavy-bodied scalycap of dead poplar wood, covered in soft white cottony veil patches with a stout woolly stipe and rusty brown spores.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Bleeding Conifer Crust
Crusts
A thin greyish crust on conifer wood with a wavy, finely hairy margin that turns out from the substrate, releasing red droplets where fresh tissue is scratched. It is the standard bleeding Stereum of pine and spruce.
Spore print · White
Blue Cheese Polypore
Polypores
A small, soft, hairy white bracket that develops distinct blue-grey tints, especially on the pore surface and where bruised, growing in tiers on dead conifer wood.
Spore print · Pale bluish white
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
Lion Shield
Gilled
A slender golden-yellow shield mushroom with a velvety wrinkled cap centre, a finely lined margin and free gills that flush pink. It fruits on decaying deciduous wood.
Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink
Scarlet Elf Cup
Cups & Discs
A vivid scarlet cup 1-5 cm across, lined with intense red on the inside and whitish and felty on the outside, growing on damp mossy hardwood sticks. It is one of the earliest and most colourful fungi of the year.
Spore print · White
Ringless Honey Mushroom
Gilled
A honey-brown clustered wood fungus that matches the true Honey Mushroom in colour and habit but has no ring at all on its long tapering stem. It swarms in huge tufts around the bases of oaks and other hardwoods.
Spore print · White