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 Red-capped Scaber Stalk

Bell Morel

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

False Saffron Milkcap

False Saffron Milkcap

Gilled

An orange spruce-associated milkcap whose carrot-coloured latex turns wine-red within half an hour and whose flesh and cap green strongly with age.

Spore print · Pale cream

Shaggy Scarlet Cup

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

Common Funnel

Common Funnel

Gilled

A slender, pinkish-buff woodland mushroom whose thin cap develops a deep central funnel above crowded white decurrent gills.

Spore print · White

Common Inkcap

Common Inkcap

Gilled

A clustered grey-brown inkcap whose egg-shaped cap opens into a ribbed bell and then digests itself from the rim inward, dripping away as black ink. It rises in dense tufts from buried wood in gardens, verges and woodland edges.

Spore print · Black

Starfish Fungus

Starfish Fungus

Stinkhorns

A stinkhorn shaped like a sea anemone: a hollow pale stalk expands into a red disc fringed with forked arms, with dark olive spore slime pooled in the centre.

Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)

Pig's Ears

Pig's Ears

Cups & Discs

A large reddish-brown ascomycete that begins as a deep cup and flattens into a wrinkled, ear-like saucer on decaying conifer wood. Its short ribbed stub of a stalk and pale, scurfy underside separate it from the true cup fungi.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Chrome-footed Bolete

Chrome-footed Bolete

Boletes

A striking pink-capped bolete whose white stipe is dotted with pink scabers above and washed brilliant chrome-yellow at the base. The pore surface is white, ageing pink.

Spore print · Pinkish-brown

Meadow Waxcap

Meadow Waxcap

Gilled

A robust apricot-buff waxcap with a dry, matt cap, thick pale decurrent gills running well down the stem, and a stout stipe tapering to the base.

Spore print · White

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

Trooping Funnel

Trooping Funnel

Gilled

A tall, large pale buff funnel that forms sweeping troops and fairy rings along woodland edges, keeping a distinct central bump in the funnel.

Spore print · White

Golden Bootleg

Golden Bootleg

Gilled

A large and striking golden-ochre mushroom of nutrient-rich waste ground, coated in a fine granular powder and carrying a big flaring ring on a sheathed, boot-like stem.

Spore print · Ochre-brown

Golden Waxcap

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

Shaggy Mane

Shaggy Mane

Gilled

A tall white cylindrical mushroom covered in shaggy upturned scales, whose gills blacken and dissolve into an inky liquid from the cap margin upward as it matures.

Spore print · Black

Orange Birch Bolete

Orange Birch Bolete

Boletes

A tall, striking bolete with a bright orange felty cap, a white stipe studded with blackish scabers, and white flesh that turns pinkish-grey and then near-black when cut. It grows only with birch.

Spore print · Ochre-brown

Vermilion Waxcap

Vermilion Waxcap

Gilled

A very small scarlet waxcap whose dry cap is minutely scurfy under a lens, with orange-red gills that run slightly down a smooth red stem.

Spore print · White

Woolly Milkcap

Woolly Milkcap

Gilled

A pink, concentrically banded birch milkcap with a heavily inrolled, shaggily woolly cap margin and copious white latex that does not change colour.

Spore print · Cream

Date Waxcap

Date Waxcap

Gilled

A rare and unmistakable waxcap combining a dark date-brown conical cap with vivid lemon-yellow gills and stipe.

Spore print · White

Black Witches' Butter

Black Witches' Butter

Jellies

A gelatinous black fungus forming rubbery cushions and blobs that fuse into wrinkled, brain-like crusts on dead hardwood branches. It swells in wet weather and shrinks to a thin black scab when dry.

Spore print · White

Bonfire Scalycap

Bonfire Scalycap

Gilled

A small sticky-capped scalycap restricted to burnt ground and charcoal, with a tawny centre, pale yellow margin and a brown spore print.

Spore print · Brown

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

Frost's Bolete

Frost's Bolete

Boletes

A vivid lacquered blood-red bolete with dark red pores that weep amber droplets when young, and a deeply pitted, coarsely netted red stipe. Bruises blue instantly.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Milky Conecap

Milky Conecap

Gilled

An extremely fragile white to cream conical mushroom of lawns and short grass that appears overnight and collapses within hours, betrayed by its rusty cinnamon spore print.

Spore print · Rusty cinnamon-brown

Mower's Mushroom

Mower's Mushroom

Gilled

A very common small brown lawn mushroom whose hygrophanous cap dries in distinct pale bands, with mottled brown gills and dark purplish-brown spores.

Spore print · Dark purplish brown