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 Common Puffball, Warted Puffball

Wet Rot Fungus

Wet Rot Fungus

Crusts

A thin, closely attached crust that starts creamy white and matures to olive- or umber-brown, its surface roughened with small warts and lumps. It grows on persistently wet dead wood outdoors and on damp timber indoors.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Wrinkled Crust

Wrinkled Crust

Crusts

A waxy salmon to purplish-orange crust whose centre is thrown into radiating folds and warts, with a paler smooth fringe at the edge.

Spore print · White

Perigord Black Truffle

Other Fungi

A hypogeous ascomycete forming rounded black tubers covered in small pyramidal warts, with a purple-black interior finely marbled by white veins.

Spore print · Not applicable (hypogeous)

Summer Truffle

Summer Truffle

Other Fungi

A widespread hypogeous ascomycete with a black exterior of large, coarse pyramidal warts and a pale hazel-brown interior broadly marbled with white veins.

Spore print · Not applicable (hypogeous)

Hollyhock Rust

Hollyhock Rust

Other Fungi

A short-cycle rust of the mallow family that studs hollyhock leaf undersides with orange-brown wart-like pustules, each matched by a yellow spot above.

Spore print · Not applicable (brown spore masses)

Franchet's Amanita

Franchet's Amanita

Gilled

A European amanita with an olive- to grey-brown cap sprinkled with soft yellow warts, a yellow-edged ring, and yellow veil belts on a swollen stem base.

Spore print · White

Phoenix Oyster Mushroom

Phoenix Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

The warm-season oyster mushroom, with paler, thinner, more lung-shaped caps than the common oyster and a more clearly developed lateral stem.

Spore print · White to pale lilac-grey

Parasitic Bolete

Parasitic Bolete

Boletes

A small olive-yellow bolete that grows nowhere except attached to the base of a common earthball, usually with several fruitbodies clustered around a single host.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Silky Pinkgill

Silky Pinkgill

Gilled

A common small brown grassland pinkgill with a silky, strongly hygrophanous cap, farinaceous smell and pink spore print.

Spore print · Pink

Yellow-veiled Amanita

Yellow-veiled Amanita

Gilled

A western North American amanita with a dark brown to olive cap sprinkled with vivid golden warts, a yellow-edged ring, and yellow veil belts on the bulbous base.

Spore print · White

Frost's Amanita

Frost's Amanita

Gilled

A small, brightly coloured eastern amanita with an orange cap, a strongly grooved margin, pale yellow warts, and a rounded bulb finished with a distinct collar-like rim.

Spore print · White

Elegant Sunburst Lichen

Elegant Sunburst Lichen

Other Fungi

A tightly appressed, brilliant orange rock lichen forming neat rosettes of narrow radiating lobes, common on bird-perch boulders in alpine and arctic country.

Spore print · Not applicable

Fly Agaric

Fly Agaric

Gilled

The archetypal storybook mushroom: a scarlet or orange cap sprinkled with white warts, standing on a white stem with a skirt-like ring and a bulbous base ringed by concentric scaly girdles.

Spore print · White

Mower's Mushroom

Mower's Mushroom

Gilled

A very common small brown lawn mushroom whose hygrophanous cap dries in distinct pale bands, with mottled brown gills and dark purplish-brown spores.

Spore print · Dark purplish brown

Clustered Toughshank

Clustered Toughshank

Gilled

Crowded tufts of slim pale mushrooms whose long stems, densely coated in fine white hairs, fuse together at a common base buried in the leaf litter.

Spore print · White

Yellow Webcap

Yellow Webcap

Gilled

A slimy-capped webcap in warm ochre-yellow, distinguished by pale bluish-violet young gills and a bluish stem apex above a glutinous, banded stem. Common with birch on damp acid soils.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Panther Cap

Panther Cap

Gilled

A brown-capped Amanita speckled with small pure-white warts, with a strongly grooved cap margin, white unchanging flesh, and a stem base finished with an abrupt collar-like rim.

Spore print · White

Meadow Coral

Meadow Coral

Corals & Clubs

A yellow to apricot grassland coral whose slender branches fork repeatedly into blunt antler tips above a distinctly white, downy base. Common in mossy, unimproved turf.

Spore print · White

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

Purple Brittlegill

Purple Brittlegill

Gilled

A common brittlegill with a deep purple cap darkening almost to black at the centre, cream gills and a firm white stipe that ages dirty grey.

Spore print · Pale cream

Terracotta Hedgehog

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

Split Porecrust

Split Porecrust

Polypores

An extremely common white to cream resupinate polypore whose pores split and fray, becoming maze-like and finally tooth-like towards the centre.

Spore print · White

Fragrant Chanterelle

Fragrant Chanterelle

Gilled

A vivid orange trumpet-shaped fungus that grows in dense fused clusters from a common base, with a nearly smooth underside and a powerful sweet aroma.

Spore print · Pale yellow to cream

Pluteus admirabilis

Pluteus admirabilis

Gilled

A very small, delicate golden-yellow shield mushroom with a wrinkled cap centre, a strongly lined margin and free gills that flush pink. It is common on decaying hardwood in eastern North America.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink