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-Capped Butter Bolete

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

Saffron Milk Cap

Saffron Milk Cap

Gilled

A stout orange milkcap with concentric bands on the cap, decurrent orange gills, and carrot-orange latex that slowly turns the flesh green. It grows only with pines.

Spore print · Pale cream to buff

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

Corrugated-cap Milkcap

Corrugated-cap Milkcap

Gilled

A large, dark reddish-brown milkcap with a velvety, deeply corrugated cap surface and cinnamon-tinted gills that stain brown. It bleeds abundant white latex from any damaged tissue.

Spore print · White to pale cream

False Death Cap

False Death Cap

Gilled

A pale citron-yellow Amanita with flattened buff veil patches, a pendulous ring, an abruptly rimmed turnip-like basal bulb and a distinct raw-potato odour.

Spore print · White

Common Ink Cap

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

Pinecone Cap

Pinecone Cap

Gilled

A slender spring mushroom arising from buried pine cones, with a small pale brown cap, whitish widely spaced gills, and a long tawny rooting stem.

Spore print · White

Conifercone Cap

Conifercone Cap

Gilled

A small tan-buff mushroom that fruits directly from fallen spruce and pine cones, recognised by extremely crowded gills and a hairy, cord-like rooting stem base.

Spore print · White

Candy Cap

Candy Cap

Gilled

A rusty orange-brown milkcap of the Pacific coast with a dry, faintly wrinkled cap and thin watery latex. Dried fruitbodies develop a powerful sweet aroma often likened to maple syrup or fenugreek.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Mica Cap

Mica Cap

Gilled

A small tawny-honey inkcap with a deeply grooved cap sparkling with mica-like granules when fresh, fruiting in dense clusters at the base of hardwood stumps.

Spore print · Dark brown to blackish

Liberty Cap

Gilled

A small, slender grassland mushroom with a sharply conical cap ending in a distinct nipple, a separable gelatinous cap skin, a wavy thin stem and a dark purple-brown spore print.

Spore print · Dark purple-brown

Death Cap

Death Cap

Gilled

A medium to large Amanita with a smooth greenish cap streaked with darker radiating fibres, white free gills, a pendulous ring, and a conspicuous white membranous sac enclosing the stem base.

Spore print · White

White Dunce Cap

White Dunce Cap

Gilled

An extremely fragile white to cream conical mushroom of lawns that appears overnight and often collapses by midday, with rusty ochre spores.

Spore print · Rusty ochre-brown

Shaggy Ink Cap

Shaggy Ink Cap

Gilled

A tall, white, cylindrical mushroom clothed in shaggy upturned scales, whose gills pass from white through pink to black before dissolving into inky liquid. The movable ring and black spore print are confirming features.

Spore print · Black

Cracked Cap Polypore

Cracked Cap Polypore

Polypores

A hard perennial conk almost restricted to black locust, its blackened upper crust splitting into deep blocky cracks above a rich rusty brown pore surface.

Spore print · Pale yellowish to whitish

Indigo Milk Cap

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

Slippery Jack

Slippery Jack

Boletes

A slimy chestnut-brown bolete with small pale yellow pores and, uniquely among common Suillus species, a large membranous ring on the stipe that leaves a purple-brown band below it.

Spore print · Clay-brown to ochre

Orange Jelly

Orange Jelly

Jellies

A bright orange, brain-like jelly of barkless conifer wood, distinguished by the conspicuous whitish point where it roots into the log.

Spore print · Pale yellowish to whitish

Appalachian Chanterelle

Appalachian Chanterelle

Gilled

A slender, small chanterelle with a brownish to olive-brown cap contrasting against pale yellow false gills. It is characteristic of hardwood slopes in and around the Appalachian Mountains.

Spore print · Pale yellow to cream

Leafy Brain

Leafy Brain

Jellies

A brown gelatinous fungus forming rosettes of thin, wavy, leaf-like lobes that look like a clump of seaweed stranded on a conifer stump.

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

Yellow Brain

Yellow Brain

Jellies

A vivid golden-yellow jelly fungus that erupts in brain-like folded lobes from dead hardwood twigs, shrivelling to a hard crust in dry weather and swelling again after rain.

Spore print · White

Charcoal Burner

Charcoal Burner

Gilled

A common woodland brittlegill with a variably purple, green and slate-grey cap, unique in the genus for gills that are soft, greasy and flexible rather than brittle and shattering.

Spore print · White

Button Mushroom

Button Mushroom

Gilled

A stocky white or tan Agaricus with free gills that run from pale pink through cocoa to blackish brown, a simple membranous ring, and no volva at the stem base.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown