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 “Black Morel”
Chaga
Polypores
A black, deeply cracked sterile mass that erupts from living birch trunks like a lump of charcoal, revealing bright rusty-orange interior tissue when broken.
Spore print · Pale brown (from hidden fertile crust)
Haymaker's Mushroom
Gilled
A tiny, extremely common lawn fungus with a hygrophanous date-brown cap that dries pale from the centre, and mottled dark brown gills with pale edges. Its dark brown rather than black spore print separates it from true Panaeolus.
Spore print · Dark brown
Corn Smut
Other Fungi
A smut fungus that turns maize kernels, tassels and leaves into swollen silvery-grey galls which rupture to release masses of sooty black spores. It occurs wherever maize is grown.
Spore print · Not applicable
Egghead Mottlegill
Gilled
A pale, egg-shaped dung fungus with mottled grey-black gills and, unusually for the genus, a distinct membranous ring on a long slender stipe. The cap is often shiny and wrinkled as it dries.
Spore print · Black
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
Cat Dapperling
Gilled
A small conifer-woodland dapperling with a starkly two-toned cap: near-black scales scattered over a white ground around a dark disc, above a slender stem with a distinct dark-edged ring.
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
White-egg Bird's Nest
Other Fungi
A squat, crucible-shaped little cup, tawny-ochre and felty outside with a smooth pale interior, holding neat white disc-shaped 'eggs'. The white peridioles set it apart from the grey and black ones of Cyathus.
Spore print · Not applicable (spores held in peridioles)
Dead Man's Fingers
Other Fungi
Swollen black clubs standing upright from decaying hardwood stumps like blackened fingers, tough and carbon-crusted outside with startling white flesh inside. It is a wood-rotting flask fungus present year-round.
Spore print · Black
Leopard Earthball
Puffballs
A small ochre earthball whose surface is patterned with tiny dark scales, each ringed by a pale halo like leopard spots. It grows on damp woodland soil and has a thin tough rind over a purple-black interior.
Spore print · Purple-black to blackish brown
Common Earthball
Puffballs
A hard, squat, dirty-yellow ball with a thick rind broken into coarse polygonal warts, sitting half-buried on acid woodland soil. Cut vertically it shows a firm marbled purple-black interior even when young.
Spore print · Purple-black to blackish brown (spore mass)
Toad's Ear
Cups & Discs
The darkest of the ear fungi, forming robust dark brown to almost blackish ear-shaped cups split down one side on woodland soil.
Spore print · White
Native Bread
Polypores
An Australian polypore whose small funnel-shaped cap rises on a stalk from a large, hard, marbled underground sclerotium buried in forest soil.
Spore print · White
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
Lilac Bonnet
Gilled
A litter-dwelling bonnet with a lilac, violet or pinkish cap, broad widely spaced gills and a strong radish smell. Colour varies widely, so the odour and gill structure matter more than the shade.
Spore print · White
Small Stagshorn
Jellies
Small, tough-gelatinous yellow spikes that stand upright in groups along dead hardwood, usually unbranched and rarely more than a couple of centimetres tall.
Spore print · White to pale yellowish
Green Elf Cup
Cups & Discs
A minute turquoise cup fungus whose mycelium dyes rotting hardwood a vivid blue-green; the stained wood is far more often seen than the fruiting bodies.
Spore print · White
Bleeding Oak Crust
Crusts
An oak-loving crust that spreads over dead wood and turns out small hairy tan brackets along its edge, releasing red droplets from a scratch on fresh tissue. It is thinner and more clearly reflexed than its broadleaf relatives.
Spore print · White
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
Copper Brittlegill
Gilled
A sturdy orange-brown brittlegill of northern pine woods whose white flesh and stipe turn ash-grey and finally blackish as the fruiting body ages.
Spore print · Pale ochre
Persistent Waxcap
Gilled
A bright yellow to apricot-orange waxcap with a sharply pointed cap that keeps its colour instead of blackening with age.
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
Red Pinwheel Marasmius
Gilled
A miniature pinwheel with a rose-pink to reddish-purple grooved cap and a shining blackish thread of a stem, scattered across damp woodland litter.
Spore print · White
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