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 “Chicken of the Woods”
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
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
Pixie's Parasol
Gilled
A tiny Southern Hemisphere bonnet with a startling sky-blue to turquoise gelatinous cap, attached to rotting wood by a small basal disc. It is a signature fungus of cool, wet temperate rainforest.
Spore print · White
Funeral Bell
Gilled
A small, strongly hygrophanous honey-brown mushroom of rotting wood, identified by rusty brown spores, a thin membranous ring dusted rust by falling spores, and clustered growth on logs.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Shiitake
Gilled
A tough-fleshed wood-rotting agaric with a dry brown cap that cracks into a pale crazed pattern, white notched gills and a fibrous, off-centre stem with a fleeting ring zone.
Spore print · White
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
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
Primrose Brittlegill
Gilled
A dark purple pine-wood brittlegill named for its primrose-yellow gills, which contrast sharply with the violet-flushed stipe. It is one of the most consistent brittlegills of sandy conifer plantations.
Spore print · Pale cream
Pear-shaped Puffball
Puffballs
A small, smooth, pear-shaped puffball that fruits in crowded troops directly on rotting stumps and logs, joined at the base by conspicuous white mycelial cords. It is the only common puffball reliably found on wood.
Spore print · Olive-brown (spore mass)
Yellowfoot
Gilled
A slender late-season funnel fungus with a brown perforated cap, greyish blunt ridges and a hollow, bright yellow stalk. It carpets mossy conifer floors and well-rotted wood in large troops.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Onion-stalk Parasol
Gilled
A soft white parasol with a mealy, pleated cap and a stem that swells into an onion-shaped bulb before tapering to a point. It fruits in crowded clusters on wood chips, mulch and compost, often dozens at a time.
Spore print · White
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
Enoki
Gilled
A cold-weather wood-rotter forming dense tufts of small, glossy tawny caps above dark velvety stems. Cultivated strains grown in darkness look completely different: long, pale, thread-thin stems with tiny white caps.
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
Beautiful Bonnet
Gilled
A tufted wood bonnet with a pale ochre-brown cap and a striking bright yellow stipe, most often found on beech. The contrast between pale cap and vivid stem base gives it its name.
Spore print · White
Beech Jellydisc
Jellies
Translucent, gelatinous pinkish-buff discs crowded together on fallen beech wood, often forming knobbly cushions. The soft rubbery texture and pale lilac tint distinguish it from darker jelly fungi.
Spore print · White
Pioppino
Gilled
A clustered wood-dwelling mushroom with a wrinkled tan cap, a firm white stipe bearing a persistent ring, and gills that darken from whitish to tobacco brown. It grows in tiers on poplar and other soft hardwoods.
Spore print · Tobacco brown
White Button Mushroom
Gilled
The familiar rounded white Agaricus with free gills that shift from pale pink to dark brown and a soft ring on the stipe. Wild forms grow on rich, composted or manured ground rather than on wood.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Oyster Rollrim
Gilled
A stalkless ochre to yellow-brown fan on conifer wood, recognised by its inrolled wavy margin and soft, crowded, strongly forked and cross-veined orange-buff gills that separate easily from the flesh.
Spore print · Pale yellowish brown
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
Coral Tooth Fungus
Toothed
A delicately branched white fungus whose thin arms carry short spines in neat rows along their undersides. It grows on dead broadleaf wood and looks like a piece of white marine coral fixed to a log.
Spore print · White
Brown Birch Bolete
Boletes
The commonest of the scaber stalks, a tall grey-brown bolete of birch woodland with a slender stem roughened by dark scaly tufts.
Spore print · Snuff-brown
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
Lemon Disco
Cups & Discs
Swarms of minute lemon-yellow discs scattered in their hundreds across damp barkless hardwood, one of the brightest sights on the autumn woodland floor.
Spore print · White