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 Red Raspberry Slime Mold

American Caesar's Mushroom

American Caesar's Mushroom

Gilled

A brilliant red-to-orange Amanita of eastern North American oak and pine woods, with yellow gills, a yellow-orange skirt ring and a thick white sac at the base.

Spore print · White

Foxy Bolete

Foxy Bolete

Boletes

A firm-fleshed conifer scaber stalk with a deep fox-red cap, blackish scabers on a stout white stem, and flesh that greys strongly with blue-green tints at the base.

Spore print · Ochre-brown

Crab Brittlegill

Crab Brittlegill

Gilled

A robust brittlegill with a dark wine-red cap, ochre gills and a stipe flushed pink that browns wherever it is handled, accompanied by a strong smell of shellfish.

Spore print · Ochre

Blushing Bracket

Blushing Bracket

Polypores

A flat, radially wrinkled bracket in reddish and tan bands whose pale maze-like underside flushes distinctly pink-red wherever it is touched.

Spore print · White

Shaggy Scarlet Cup

Shaggy Scarlet Cup

Cups & Discs

A miniature scarlet goblet clothed in long white shaggy hairs, borne on a slender stalk from buried hardwood twigs. The combination of red interior and white woolly exterior is unmistakable.

Spore print · White

Zeller's Bolete

Zeller's Bolete

Boletes

A striking western North American bolete with a sooty, velvet-textured dark cap that contrasts sharply against bright yellow pores and a red-streaked stem.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Goblet Waxcap

Goblet Waxcap

Gilled

A small scarlet waxcap shaped like a tiny chanterelle, with a scurfy funnel-shaped cap, deeply decurrent yellow gills and a long slender red stem.

Spore print · White

Suede Bolete

Suede Bolete

Boletes

A medium bolete with a dry, suede-textured olive-brown cap over large, bright golden-yellow angular pores. The stipe is ribbed rather than netted and lacks red streaking.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Orange Bonnet

Orange Bonnet

Gilled

A minute bonnet with a vivid orange to orange-red cap perched on a slender yellow stem, fruiting on wet twigs and fallen debris. Its size is measured in millimetres but its colour is unmistakable.

Spore print · White

Lobster Mushroom

Lobster Mushroom

Other Fungi

Not a mushroom in its own right but a parasitic ascomycete that encases Russula and Lactarius fruitbodies in a pimpled, brilliant orange-red crust, twisting them into dense, contorted shapes.

Spore print · Not applicable

Rosy Earthstar

Rosy Earthstar

Puffballs

One of the larger earthstars, with thick fleshy rays that flush pinkish-red on their inner surface when fresh and a stalkless buff spore sac with a silky, ungrooved mouth.

Spore print · Brown (spore mass)

Pear Fibrecap

Pear Fibrecap

Gilled

A pale ochre fibrecap that flushes rusty red where handled and carries a strong sweet scent of ripe pears. A robust species of broadleaf woodland on richer soils.

Spore print · Snuff-brown

Peach Leaf Curl

Other Fungi

A spring-active sac fungus that turns unfolding peach and nectarine leaves into thick, crinkled, red or purple puckered blades. A whitish bloom of spore-bearing cells later coats the distorted surface.

Spore print · Not applicable

Brick Cap

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

Wheat Stem Rust

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)

Royal Bolete

Royal Bolete

Boletes

A striking butter bolete with a rose-pink to purple-red velvety cap over bright yellow pores and a yellow, finely netted stipe. Flesh yellow with little or no blueing.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Heterobasidion annosum

Heterobasidion annosum

Polypores

A perennial, irregularly shelving polypore found at the root collar and stump surfaces of conifers, recognised by its rough red-brown to blackish upper crust, sharp white growing margin and cream pore surface.

Spore print · White

Wine Cap

Wine Cap

Gilled

A large mulch-bed mushroom with a wine-red cap fading to tan, purple-grey gills, and an unmistakable thick white ring whose upper surface splits into radiating cogwheel spokes.

Spore print · Dark purple-brown to purple-black

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

Old Man of the Woods

Old Man of the Woods

Boletes

An unmistakable bolete covered in coarse, shaggy, blackish-grey pyramidal scales, with a woolly stipe and white flesh that turns red and then black when cut. Its spore print is nearly black.

Spore print · Blackish-brown to black

Blushing Milkcap

Blushing Milkcap

Gilled

A very large, heavy white milkcap blotched with wine-red or vinaceous patches, distinguished by crowded pink gills and copious white latex. It grows exclusively with poplars and willows, often in dune slacks and damp sandy ground.

Spore print · Pale pinkish-cream

Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic

Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic

Puffballs

A small, brilliant red spore ball with star-shaped lips, sheathed in clear jelly and raised on a stalk of tangled gelatinous cords. It grows on bare mossy clay banks in oak-rich hardwood forest.

Spore print · Pale yellowish to whitish

Pink-tipped Coral

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

Scaly Wood Mushroom

Scaly Wood Mushroom

Gilled

A tall woodland Agaricus clothed in dark reddish-brown fibrous scales, whose white flesh turns vivid blood-red within seconds of being cut. Fruits in conifer and mixed forest litter.

Spore print · Dark brown