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 Conecap or Conical Brittlestem

Lion's Mane

Lion's Mane

Toothed

An unmistakable white cushion of long, downward-hanging spines that grows from wounds on standing hardwoods, looking like a frozen waterfall or a shaggy mane.

Spore print · White

Lurid Bolete

Lurid Bolete

Boletes

A red-pored bolete of limy soils recognised by the coarse red network covering its stipe and by the thin orange-red line revealed just above the tubes when the fruit body is cut lengthways.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Coccora

Coccora

Gilled

A large, handsome Pacific coast amanita with a deep orange-brown cap that usually carries one thick, felty white patch of veil, a lined margin, and a deep sac-like volva.

Spore print · White

Rosy Crust

Rosy Crust

Crusts

A thin waxy crust in warm salmon-pink to coral-orange shades, spreading along dead attached twigs of hazel, oak and gorse.

Spore print · White

Western Gall Rust

Western Gall Rust

Other Fungi

A rust of hard pines that swells branches into round woody galls which split each spring and release clouds of bright orange spores.

Spore print · Not applicable (orange spore masses)

Cinnabar Polypore

Cinnabar Polypore

Polypores

An unmistakable bracket coloured vivid orange-red throughout, from the smooth upper surface to the fine pore layer beneath.

Spore print · White

White Button Mushroom

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

White Pine Blister Rust

White Pine Blister Rust

Other Fungi

A two-host rust that raises orange, blister-like sacs on the bark of five-needle pines and clothes currant leaf undersides with yellow pustules and hair-like brown columns.

Spore print · Not applicable (orange-yellow spore masses)

Terracotta Hedgehog

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

Lilac Bonnet

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

Golden Scalycap

Golden Scalycap

Gilled

A striking golden-orange Pholiota that fruits from wounds high on broadleaf trunks, with a glutinous cap bearing flattened darker scales and a rusty spore print.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Inocybe erubescens

Inocybe erubescens

Gilled

A stout, silky white fibrecap of chalky beech and lime woods that reddens conspicuously where handled or aged. Its spring fruiting and radially split cap are characteristic.

Spore print · Clay brown

Veiled Polypore

Polypores

A small, hard, pale globe or hoof attached to dead conifer bark, unique among polypores in having its pore surface sealed inside a membranous veil pierced by a single small opening.

Spore print · White

Fragile Brittlegill

Fragile Brittlegill

Gilled

A small, extremely fragile brittlegill with a variably purple, wine or olive-centred cap. A hand lens reveals finely serrated gill edges, a rare and diagnostic feature.

Spore print · White

The Blusher

The Blusher

Gilled

A robust woodland Amanita whose flesh slowly stains wine-pink to reddish-brown wherever it is cut, bruised or nibbled by insects, with a grooved ring and dirty pinkish-grey veil warts.

Spore print · White

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

Reishi

Reishi

Polypores

A hard, kidney-shaped bracket with a strikingly glossy, varnished-looking reddish-mahogany surface, a pale cream pore underside and often a lateral or eccentric stalk.

Spore print · Brown

Stalked Lattice Stinkhorn

Stalked Lattice Stinkhorn

Stinkhorns

A tall stinkhorn with a slender whitish stalk carrying a globose, orange-red latticed head whose mesh spaces are filled with dark olive spore slime.

Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)

Strap Coral

Strap Coral

Corals & Clubs

Small, tongue- or strap-shaped clubs of pale buff to pinkish-ochre, often fruiting in scattered troops through deep conifer needle litter.

Spore print · White to pale pinkish-buff

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

Moose Antlers

Moose Antlers

Cups & Discs

Clusters of tall, ear- or antler-shaped rubbery blades rising from a hard underground mass in rich eastern North American hardwood forest.

Spore print · Brownish

Tawny Funnel

Tawny Funnel

Gilled

A rusty orange-brown funnel that fruits in dense crowded troops and rings in woodland litter, with very crowded decurrent gills that age to the cap colour.

Spore print · Pale cream

Crown-tipped Coral

Crown-tipped Coral

Corals & Clubs

A wood-inhabiting coral whose every branch ends in a small crown or cup ringed with tiny points, growing in rows along rotting hardwood logs.

Spore print · White

Eyelash Cup

Eyelash Cup

Cups & Discs

A miniature orange-red disc fungus rimmed with stiff black hairs like eyelashes, growing in troops on wet rotting wood and damp ground.

Spore print · Whitish