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 “Old Man of the Woods”
Cobalt Crust
Crusts
An unmistakable resupinate fungus forming intense indigo to cobalt-blue velvety patches on the underside of fallen hardwood branches.
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
Giant Cypress Agaricus
Gilled
A giant west-coast Agaricus of coastal cypress and pine groves, with a heavy brown-scaled cap that can reach 30 cm and a thick, patchy ring. Fruits in the winter rains.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
California Agaricus
Gilled
A common lawn and garden Agaricus of the Pacific coast, with a pale silky cap, a flaring patch-bearing ring and pale greyish rather than bright pink young gills.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Crimson Waxcap
Gilled
The largest of the red waxcaps, with a deep blood-crimson greasy cap, thick waxy yellow-red gills and a fibrous streaky stipe that is distinctly white at the very base.
Spore print · White
Mica Cap
Gilled
A small tawny-honey inkcap with a deeply grooved cap sparkling with mica-like granules when fresh, fruiting in dense clusters at the base of hardwood stumps.
Spore print · Dark brown to blackish
Scarlet Waxcap
Gilled
A small, vividly blood-red grassland mushroom with thick, waxy, broadly attached gills and a smooth red stem, one of the classic waxcaps of ancient short turf.
Spore print · White
Silky Rosegill
Gilled
A tall pale mushroom of compost and cultivated ground with a slightly greasy grey cap, free gills that turn salmon pink, no ring, and a large white sac at the stem base.
Spore print · Pink to salmon pink
Summer Bolete
Boletes
An early-season relative of the porcini with a dry, velvety, often crazed brown cap and a pale net covering the whole length of the stipe. Flesh is white and unchanging.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Wood Woollyfoot
Gilled
A pliant, ochre-brown litter mushroom named for the dense woolly mat of pale hairs clothing the base of its stem and matting the surrounding leaves.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Olive Shaggy Parasol
Gilled
The woodland member of the shaggy parasol group, its cap a muted olive-grey to greyish-brown with felty scales that barely stand out against the background.
Spore print · White
Waxy Crust
Crusts
A translucent, waxy-gelatinous layer that develops under the bark of dead oak branches, splitting and rolling the bark back to reveal itself on bare wood.
Spore print · White
Weeping Polypore
Polypores
A massive lumpy bracket at the foot of oak trees, unmistakable when young for the beads of amber liquid that stand all over its buff upper surface.
Spore print · Whitish to pale yellow
Ochre Bracket
Polypores
A close relative of Turkey Tail that is thicker and stiffer, banded in warm ochre, tan and rust tones with a cushion-like swelling at the attachment.
Spore print · White
Snowy Waxcap
Gilled
A small, slender, entirely white waxcap with thick decurrent gills and a tapering stem, often the last waxcap still fruiting in the turf after the first frosts.
Spore print · White
Black Bulgar
Cups & Discs
Rubbery black top-shaped buttons crowding the bark of freshly fallen oak, with a shiny black fertile disc that leaves dark spore smudges on the fingers.
Spore print · Blackish brown
Columned Stinkhorn
Stinkhorns
A warm-climate stinkhorn built from two to five thick orange columns that are free at the base and joined in an arch at the top, with dark spore slime on the inner faces of the arch.
Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)
White Spindles
Corals & Clubs
Clusters of slender, brittle, pure white unbranched clubs that grow in tight tufts among moss and short grass. They snap at the slightest pressure, giving the species its name.
Spore print · White
Orange Mycena
Gilled
A vividly orange, sticky-capped bonnet that grows in dense tufts on hardwood logs and is instantly recognised by the bright orange edges of its otherwise pale gills.
Spore print · White
Spectacular Rustgill
Gilled
A big, showy orange-tawny agaric that fruits in massive clusters at the base of broadleaf stumps, with a fibrillose scaly cap, ringed stipe and rusty orange spore print.
Spore print · Rusty orange-brown
Wrinkled Fieldcap
Gilled
A tall pale fieldcap of fresh woodchip, recognised by its distinctly wrinkled and veined cap surface and the large flaring ring hanging from a white stipe.
Spore print · Dark brown
Rufous Milkcap
Gilled
A deep brick-red milkcap of acid pine and birch woodland, recognised by the sharp little point at the centre of a dry, matt cap. Its white latex stays white and is produced abundantly.
Spore print · Pale cream
Red Cage
Stinkhorns
A startling stinkhorn that hatches from a whitish egg as a hollow, spherical cage of coral-red spongy arms, with dark olive spore slime lining the inner faces of the mesh.
Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)
King Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
The heaviest of the oyster mushrooms, with a small greyish-tan cap perched on a thick club-shaped white stem, growing from the dead root crowns of umbellifers in dry grassland.
Spore print · White to pale cream