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 Ink Cap

Fool's Funnel

Fool's Funnel

Gilled

A small white to buff funnel of lawns and short turf, marked by concentric frost-like zones on the cap and crowded decurrent gills.

Spore print · White

Wood Mushroom

Gilled

A graceful white woodland Agaricus with silky cap, free pink-then-brown gills, a large pendulous ring and a marked aniseed aroma.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown

Termite Mushroom

Gilled

A giant tropical agaric with a sharply umbonate pale cap and a long tapering root that runs down to the fungus comb of a termite colony.

Spore print · Pinkish cream

Scarletina Bolete

Scarletina Bolete

Boletes

A stout, dark-capped bolete with blood-red pores and a yellow stipe peppered with fine red dots, whose lemon flesh turns instantly inky blue when cut.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Half-free Morel

Half-free Morel

Morels & Allies

A small, dark-ridged morel whose conical pitted cap is joined to the stalk only around its middle, leaving the lower half hanging free like a skirt. The tall, granular white stalk is usually far longer than the cap.

Spore print · Cream to pale yellow

Salt-loving Agaricus

Salt-loving Agaricus

Gilled

A dense, thick-fleshed white Agaricus of salty ground, with a cap that cracks into coarse patches, reddening flesh, a sheathing ring and a briny odour.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown

Pearly Webcap

Pearly Webcap

Gilled

A pale silvery-violet webcap of broadleaf woodland with a silky, pearl-sheened cap and a club-shaped stipe wrapped in a whitish veil sheath.

Spore print · Rusty 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

Orange Mosscap

Gilled

A minute orange mushroom that dots mossy lawns and banks, with a navel-centred cap, deeply decurrent white gills, and a hair-thin stem.

Spore print · White

Spring Polypore

Spring Polypore

Polypores

A small centrally stalked polypore with a scaly tan cap edged in coarse hairs and unusually large angular white pores that run down the stem.

Spore print · White

Depressed Hedgehog

Depressed Hedgehog

Toothed

A small toothed fungus with an orange-tan cap dimpled at the centre and an underside of crowded brittle spines. It grows in sphagnum and moss beds under conifers.

Spore print · White

Common Conecap

Common Conecap

Gilled

A fragile grassland mushroom with a narrow conical tawny cap on a very slender striate stipe, distinguished by its rusty cinnamon-brown spore print.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Bloodred Webcap

Bloodred Webcap

Gilled

A small webcap coloured deep blood-red throughout, cap, gills and stipe alike, fruiting among mosses in damp spruce and pine forest.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Brown Field Mushroom

Brown Field Mushroom

Gilled

A squat, firm coastal Agaricus with a brown-scaled cap and an exceptionally thick, short stipe. It favours sandy grassland and dune systems near the sea.

Spore print · Dark brown

Common Fieldcap

Common Fieldcap

Gilled

A small ringless fieldcap of short turf, with a smooth hemispherical ochre-tan cap, slender pale stipe and dark brown gills and spore print.

Spore print · Dark brown

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

Crab Brittlegill

Crab Brittlegill

Gilled

A robust brittlegill with a dark wine-red cap, ochre gills and a stipe flushed pink that browns wherever it is handled, accompanied by a strong smell of shellfish.

Spore print · Ochre

Black Velvet Bolete

Black Velvet Bolete

Boletes

A dramatic bolete with a velvety black cap and stipe over a white pore surface. Cut flesh flushes pink then slowly turns grey to black.

Spore print · Pinkish-brown

Mycena chlorophos

Gilled

A minute, translucent grey bonnet of humid Asian and Pacific forests, famous for the pale green light its gills and cap emit after dark.

Spore print · White

Grey Veiled Amanita

Grey Veiled Amanita

Gilled

A conifer-loving amanita with a smooth greyish-brown cap washed with purple, a grey membranous ring, and an abrupt rounded bulb finished with a sharp rim.

Spore print · White

Netted Fieldcap

Gilled

A delicate wood-inhabiting fieldcap with a slimy greyish-lilac cap embossed with a network of raised veins, and rusty-brown gills on a fragile white stipe.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Pholiotina rugosa

Gilled

A small rusty-spored mushroom of mulch and lawns with a tawny wrinkled cap and, unlike the true conecaps, a distinct movable membranous ring on the slender stipe.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Soapy Knight

Soapy Knight

Gilled

A highly variable woodland knight with a greenish-grey cap, widely spaced notched gills and flesh that flushes pinkish where cut, especially in the stipe base.

Spore print · White

Zeller's Bolete

Zeller's Bolete

Boletes

A striking western North American bolete with a sooty, velvet-textured dark cap that contrasts sharply against bright yellow pores and a red-streaked stem.

Spore print · Olive-brown