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 “Mower's Mushroom”
Horsehair Parachute
Gilled
A pinhead-sized brown parachute perched on a stiff black hair, often accompanied by tangles of black horsehair-like cords running through the needle litter.
Spore print · White
Honey Fungus
Gilled
A clustered, honey-coloured woodland mushroom with a shaggy ring, white spore print and black bootlace-like rhizomorphs running under bark. It is one of the most significant tree-root parasites in temperate forests.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Ghost Fungus
Gilled
A large Australian bracket-forming mushroom with a cream cap mottled in grey, blue and purple tones, decurrent white gills and a short eccentric stipe; its gills emit a striking greenish glow at night.
Spore print · White to cream
Veiled Oyster
Gilled
A stout, thick-fleshed white oyster with a felty-scaly cap surface and a partial veil that leaves a fringed cap margin or a fleeting ring on the off-centre stipe. It fruits singly or in small groups from wounds on standing hardwoods.
Spore print · White
Split Gill
Gilled
A small, tough, hairy white fan growing sideways from dead wood, with gill-like folds split lengthwise down the middle that curl open and shut with the weather.
Spore print · White
California Agaricus
Gilled
A common lawn and garden Agaricus of the Pacific coast, with a pale silky cap, a flaring patch-bearing ring and pale greyish rather than bright pink young gills.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Felt-ringed Agaricus
Gilled
A stout western North American Agaricus recognised by its thick felty ring with cottony patches, pinkish-brown fibrillose cap and yellow-staining bulbous base.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Indigo Milk Cap
Gilled
An unmistakable milkcap that is indigo blue throughout, cap, gills, stem and latex alike, with a concentrically zoned funnel-shaped cap that stains dull green where bruised or aged.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
Fairy Ring Champignon
Gilled
A tough little tan grassland mushroom with a broad central umbo, widely spaced pale gills and a wiry pliant stipe, famous for growing in expanding fairy rings. Dried fruitbodies revive and refresh after rain.
Spore print · White
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
Yellow Morel
Morels & Allies
A spring ascomycete with a pale tan to yellow-ochre honeycombed head, its pits irregular and its ridges paler than the pits. Head and stalk are joined at the base and the whole fruiting body is hollow from tip to foot.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
Bovine Bolete
Boletes
A slender pinkish-tan pine bolete recognised by its wide, irregular compound pores that run down the stalk. It is frequently found in company with the pink Rosy Spike.
Spore print · Olive to clay-brown
Velvet Shank
Gilled
A tufted orange-capped mushroom with a slimy cap and a distinctive dark, velvety stem base, fruiting on hardwood stumps in the coldest months. The contrast between the bright cap and near-black stem is the giveaway.
Spore print · White
Parrot Waxcap
Gilled
A small, wholly glutinous waxcap that emerges bottle-green and then fades through yellow, orange and pink, usually keeping a green flush at the top of the slimy stem.
Spore print · White
Deer Shield
Gilled
The commonest of the shield mushrooms, with a deer-brown silky cap, free gills that turn from white to salmon-pink, and a fibrous ringless stem. It fruits on decaying wood almost year-round.
Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink
Golden Oyster
Gilled
A clustered oyster mushroom with bright lemon to golden-yellow caps that flatten into shallow funnels, with white decurrent gills on fused off-centre stalks.
Spore print · White to pale lilac-grey
Common Morel
Morels & Allies
A spring ascomycete with a pitted, honeycomb-like ovoid head fused to a hollow pale stalk, forming one continuous cavity from tip to base.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
Turkey Tail
Polypores
A thin, tough, fan-shaped bracket banded in concentric zones of contrasting colour and texture, growing in overlapping tiers and rosettes on dead hardwood. The underside is a fine white pore surface.
Spore print · White
Orange Pinwheel
Gilled
A vivid rusty-orange miniature with a pleated, umbrella-like cap held on a wiry blackish thread of a stem, scattered through damp hardwood litter.
Spore print · White
False Morel
Morels & Allies
A spring ascomycete with a reddish to dark brown head thrown into irregular convoluted lobes like a brain or a crumpled turban, with no ridge-and-pit honeycomb. Cut vertically it is irregularly chambered rather than one clean hollow.
Spore print · Pale cream to yellowish
American Matsutake
Gilled
A heavy white mushroom with cinnamon-stained cap fibrils, notched white gills and a thick sheathing ring, pushing up through sandy conifer duff. Its powerful spicy aroma is unmistakable in the field.
Spore print · White
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
Entoloma hochstetteri
Gilled
A small, startlingly blue-capped pinkgill of moist southern-hemisphere forests, unmistakable for the metallic indigo colour of its conical cap and slender fibrous stipe.
Spore print · 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