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 “Common Puffball”
Collared Earthstar
Puffballs
The largest common earthstar, whose thick outer wall splits into pointed rays and cracks around the central ball to leave a distinctive collar or saucer. The spore sac releases dust through a single fringed apical pore.
Spore print · Dark brown (spore mass)
Sulphur Tuft
Gilled
A very common stump fungus forming crowded tufts of small sulphur-yellow caps with rusty centres, sulphur-yellow gills that age greenish then purple-brown, and a purple-brown spore print.
Spore print · Purple-brown
Candlesnuff Fungus
Other Fungi
A small upright wood-rotting fungus whose black, flattened clubs are dusted white at the tips, giving the look of a freshly snuffed candle wick. It is one of the most common and longest-lasting fungi on old hardwood stumps.
Spore print · Black
Elegant Stinkhorn
Stinkhorns
A slender, unbranched stinkhorn that rises from a white egg as a tapering orange-to-pink spike, its upper third coated in dark olive slime. Common in mulched beds and rich leaf litter across eastern North America.
Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)
Fluted Bird's Nest
Other Fungi
A tiny vase-shaped fungus, shaggy and brown outside, with a silvery-grey inner wall marked by lengthwise grooves and a clutch of disc-like 'eggs' inside. The grooving separates it from every other common bird's nest fungus.
Spore print · Not applicable (spores held in peridioles)
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
Yellow-gilled Gymnopilus
Gilled
A colourful rustgill with a purplish-red, fibrillose-scaly cap and brilliant yellow gills that mature to rust, commonly clustered on wood chip beds.
Spore print · Rusty orange-brown
Golden Waxcap
Gilled
A clean lemon to golden-yellow waxcap with a viscid smooth cap and a slightly greasy yellow stem, one of the commonest and brightest species in autumn turf.
Spore print · White
Fringed Earthstar
Puffballs
A small, pale, stalkless earthstar whose fibrous mouth is ragged and fringed but never enclosed in a sharply outlined court. One of the commonest earthstars of woodland litter.
Spore print · Brown (spore mass)
Brown Mottlegill
Gilled
One of the commonest small brown mushrooms of mown lawns, with a two-tone drying cap and mottled dark brown gills that give a dark brown rather than black spore print.
Spore print · Dark brown
Grey Knight
Gilled
A soft grey knight of pine woods, with a dry cap densely covered in fine radiating fibrils and scales, white sinuate gills and a brittle white stipe. It is the commonest of a confusing group of grey Tricholoma species.
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
Split Fibrecap
Gilled
A slender ochre-brown woodland fibrecap whose sharply umbonate cap splits radially into coarse straw-coloured fibres. One of the commonest and most recognisable members of a large, difficult genus.
Spore print · Dull clay-brown
Shield Dapperling
Gilled
A slender woodland dapperling with an ochre-brown scaly cap, a shaggy fringed margin, and a stem sheathed below the vague ring in loose woolly cotton like a rolled-down sock.
Spore print · White