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 Clustered Bonnet, Trooping Funnel

Golden Chanterelle

Golden Chanterelle

Gilled

A golden-yellow funnel-shaped fungus with blunt forking ridges instead of true gills running down a solid tapering stem, and a distinctive apricot-like scent.

Spore print · Pale yellow to cream

Pioppino

Gilled

A clustered wood-dwelling mushroom with a wrinkled tan cap, a firm white stipe bearing a persistent ring, and gills that darken from whitish to tobacco brown. It grows in tiers on poplar and other soft hardwoods.

Spore print · Tobacco brown

Lantern Stinkhorn

Lantern Stinkhorn

Stinkhorns

Recognisable by its distinctly ribbed, angular stalk that ends in a cluster of short arms fused into a lantern-like point, with dark spore slime on the inner arm faces.

Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)

Jack-o'-Lantern

Jack-o'-Lantern

Gilled

A vivid orange clustering mushroom of hardwood stumps with true, sharp-edged, deeply decurrent gills that can glow faintly green in darkness, and a pale spore print.

Spore print · Cream to pale yellowish white

Horn of Plenty

Horn of Plenty

Other Fungi

A thin-fleshed, hollow, grey-black trumpet that grows in dense troops among leaf litter. Its funnel shape, near-smooth outer surface and lack of any true gills make it distinctive.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Ruddy Panus

Gilled

A tough, densely hairy little funnel- or fan-shaped mushroom in tan to rusty tones, with crowded decurrent gills that are lilac-tinted when fresh and fade to buff with age.

Spore print · White

Maitake

Polypores

A large clustered polypore that builds a rosette of grey-brown, fan- to spoon-shaped fronds from a branched white stalk at the foot of old oaks. The undersides are covered in tiny white pores rather than gills.

Spore print · White

Pepperpot Earthstar

Puffballs

The only earthstar with a spore sac perforated by many mouths and propped on a cluster of little columns, like a pepper pot on legs. A scarce, unmistakable species of dry sandy ground.

Spore print · Brown

Wheat Stem Rust

Other Fungi

The classic cereal rust, forming ragged brick-red pustules along wheat stems that turn coal-black late in the season, with orange cluster-cups on barberry in spring.

Spore print · Not applicable (rusty red spore masses)

Honey Mushroom

Honey Mushroom

Gilled

A clustered honey-coloured woodland fungus with a finely scaly cap, a thick woolly ring and black bootlace-like cords running under the bark of its host. It is one of the most important tree parasites in temperate forests.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Nameko

Gilled

A small amber-brown East Asian Pholiota famous for the thick clear gelatinous layer coating its cap, growing in clusters on dead hardwood and widely grown on inoculated logs.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Apricot Jelly

Apricot Jelly

Jellies

A striking salmon-pink to apricot jelly fungus forming translucent rolled funnels or tongues that push up from soil over buried conifer wood.

Spore print · White

Tiger Sawgill

Gilled

A tough little funnel-shaped agaric with a cream cap streaked with dark tiger-like scales, deeply decurrent saw-edged gills and a scaly stem, growing on waterlogged willow and poplar.

Spore print · White

Chanterelle

Chanterelle

Gilled

A solid egg-yellow funnel-shaped fungus whose underside carries blunt, forking, decurrent ridges rather than true gills. The flesh is white and fibrous and the odour is faintly of apricots.

Spore print · Pale cream to yellowish

Milk-white Brittlegill

Gilled

A large, chalk-white funnel-shaped brittlegill that pushes up through the soil, often emerging still crusted with earth and litter. Its decurrent, widely spaced gills are unusual for the genus.

Spore print · White to pale cream

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

False Chanterelle

False Chanterelle

Gilled

A soft orange funnel-capped mushroom with crowded, repeatedly forked, deeply decurrent true gills and a white spore print. Despite the chanterelle-like shape it belongs to the bolete order, not the chanterelles.

Spore print · White to cream

Pacific Golden Chanterelle

Gilled

The large golden funnel-capped chanterelle of Pacific Northwest conifer forests, with blunt forking ridges instead of true gills running down a tapering stem. Its cap surface is finely fibrillose, often with a pinkish or brownish cast.

Spore print · Pale yellow to cream

Short-stemmed Russula

Gilled

A large, chalk-white North American brittlegill with a deeply funnelled cap, crowded decurrent gills and a very short stout stipe, often pushing up in mounds through forest duff.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Mossy Maple Polypore

Polypores

A small perennial bracket that grows in overlapping clusters from wounds on living maples, instantly recognised by the carpet of green moss and algae that covers its cap and its very fine white pores.

Spore print · White

Common Inkcap

Common Inkcap

Gilled

A clustered grey-brown inkcap whose egg-shaped cap opens into a ribbed bell and then digests itself from the rim inward, dripping away as black ink. It rises in dense tufts from buried wood in gardens, verges and woodland edges.

Spore print · Black

Green Pepe

Green Pepe

Gilled

A very small, sticky-capped tropical Mycena whose gills and stipe emit a soft green light at night. It fruits in clusters on decaying palm fronds, bamboo and twiggy litter after warm rain.

Spore print · White

Woolly Tooth

Toothed

A thin, leathery toothed fungus forming zoned cinnamon funnels that fuse into rosettes across mossy conifer floors. Its white spore print separates it from the similar brown-spored Hydnellum species.

Spore print · White

Blushing Rosette

Blushing Rosette

Polypores

An oddly shaped cream to pinkish-buff polypore forming rosettes or lopsided funnels on the ground above buried roots, staining reddish brown where handled and often weeping red droplets.

Spore print · White