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 “Peziza Fungus”
Tremella encephala
Jellies
A pale pink to whitish gelatinous blob with brain-like folds, growing on conifer wood alongside its host crust fungus. Cutting one in half reveals a firm white core, a feature no other jelly of this colour shows.
Spore print · White
Yellow Coral
Corals & Clubs
A bulky coral fungus with a stout white trunk and crowded lemon to sulphur-yellow branches. The white flesh characteristically stains reddish then brown where bruised.
Spore print · Pale yellow-ochre
Hedgehog Mushroom
Toothed
A cream to pale apricot mushroom whose underside is covered in crowded, brittle, easily detached spines instead of gills or pores. It grows in troops and arcs on mossy woodland floors and often has an off-centre stipe.
Spore print · White to cream
Northern Tooth
Toothed
A massive tiered fungus that forms overlapping cream-coloured shelves high on living maple trunks, recognised by the crowded pendant spines that hang beneath each bracket instead of pores.
Spore print · White
Birch Polypore
Polypores
A smooth, pale, rubbery bracket that grows almost exclusively on birch, recognised by its rounded kidney shape, thick inrolled margin and fine white pore surface.
Spore print · White
False Coral
Corals & Clubs
A pale, tough, coral-like fungus whose flattened branches fuse sideways into fan-shaped or rosette-like masses on woodland soil. It looks like a coral fungus but belongs to the jelly fungus lineage.
Spore print · White
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)
Bell Morel
Morels & Allies
A thimble fungus with a smooth to faintly wrinkled brown bell-shaped cap attached only at the top of a slender pale stalk. The free-hanging margin and pith-filled stalk separate it from the true morels.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
Willow Bracket
Polypores
A rock-hard perennial hoof on willow and other broadleaves, grey to black and deeply cracked above with a rusty brown pore surface and layered annual tubes inside.
Spore print · White
Shaggy Scarlet Cup
Cups & Discs
A miniature scarlet goblet clothed in long white shaggy hairs, borne on a slender stalk from buried hardwood twigs. The combination of red interior and white woolly exterior is unmistakable.
Spore print · White
Yellow Stagshorn
Jellies
Bright orange-yellow antler-shaped branches with a tough, gelatinous, rubbery texture, rooting into buried conifer wood by a deep tapering base.
Spore print · White to pale yellow
Pine Conk
Polypores
A woody, perennial bracket that forms hard hoof-shaped conks on the trunks of standing conifers, recognised by its cracked brown upper crust and irregular, maze-like yellow-brown pores.
Spore print · Yellowish brown
Jelly Tooth
Jellies
A translucent grey to whitish gelatinous tongue whose underside is covered in soft, blunt spines, the only jelly fungus with a truly toothed fertile surface.
Spore print · White
Veiled Lady
Stinkhorns
The most spectacular stinkhorn, with a delicate white lace veil that unfurls from beneath the conical head and may hang almost to the ground. A tropical and subtropical species of rich soil and bamboo litter.
Spore print · Olive-brown (spores in the slimy gleba)
Heterobasidion annosum
Polypores
A perennial, irregularly shelving polypore found at the root collar and stump surfaces of conifers, recognised by its rough red-brown to blackish upper crust, sharp white growing margin and cream pore surface.
Spore print · White
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
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
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
Oak Leaf Blister
Other Fungi
A Taphrina sac fungus that raises pale, circular, dome-shaped blisters across oak leaves. The bulges are convex above and correspondingly hollowed on the underside.
Spore print · Not applicable
Apricot Jelly
Jellies
A striking salmon-pink to apricot jelly fungus forming translucent rolled funnels or tongues that push up from soil over buried conifer wood.
Spore print · White
Roundspored Oysterling
Gilled
A minute white shell- or fan-shaped fungus that sits directly on fallen twigs and bramble stems, distinguished microscopically by its almost perfectly spherical spores.
Spore print · Pale ochre-brown
Milk-white Toothed Polypore
Toothed
A white resupinate fungus whose surface breaks from angular pores into flattened jagged teeth, usually with narrow hairy-topped caps along the margin.
Spore print · White
Blue Tooth
Toothed
A corky ground-dwelling toothed fungus recognised by the blue tint of its growing margin and the two-toned blue and orange zoning revealed when it is sliced lengthwise.
Spore print · Brown
Golden Chanterelle
Gilled
A golden-yellow funnel-shaped fungus with blunt forking ridges instead of true gills running down a solid tapering stem, and a distinctive apricot-like scent.
Spore print · Pale yellow to cream