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 “Brown Mottlegill or Fragile Inky Cap”
Butter Bolete
Boletes
A solid golden-pored bolete of warm broadleaf woods, with a dry tan-brown cap, a yellow finely netted stipe and a tapering rooting base. Flesh pale yellow, blueing slowly and weakly.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Giant Puffball
Puffballs
An unmistakable white sphere that can reach the size of a football or larger, appearing in grassland and hedgerows. It has no stipe, no gills and no cap, and its interior ripens from firm white to a powdery olive-brown spore mass.
Spore print · Olive-brown (spore mass)
Variable Webcap
Gilled
A heavy-bodied webcap with a slightly greasy grey-brown cap, violet-tinted young gills and a swollen club-shaped stem base. It forms mycorrhizal partnerships with spruce and pine in northern and montane woodland.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Hooded False Morel
Morels & Allies
An autumn false morel whose tan to dark reddish-brown cap is folded into a two- or three-lobed saddle or mitre rather than a brain. It grows on well-rotted conifer wood and woody debris.
Spore print · White to pale yellowish
Shingled Hedgehog
Toothed
A large brown toothed fungus whose cap is covered with coarse, dark, upturned scales arranged like roof shingles. It grows on the ground under conifers and drops a brown spore print.
Spore print · Brown
Velvet Rollrim
Gilled
A robust brown mushroom of conifer stumps with a suede-textured inrolled cap, decurrent forking gills that peel away from the flesh, and a thick stem clad in dark brown-black velvet.
Spore print · Yellowish-brown
Dark Honey Fungus
Gilled
A robust clustered honey fungus of conifer forests with a dark-scaly reddish-brown cap and a thick white ring edged with brown scales, spreading through the soil by black shoestring rhizomorphs.
Spore print · White
Psathyrella aquatica
Gilled
A small brown-capped brittlestem remarkable for producing its fruit bodies fully submerged in flowing cold water, first documented in a spring-fed river in Oregon.
Spore print · Dark brown to blackish brown
Silky Pinkgill
Gilled
A common small brown grassland pinkgill with a silky, strongly hygrophanous cap, farinaceous smell and pink spore print.
Spore print · Pink
Contrary Webcap
Gilled
A stout conifer webcap whose warm orange-tawny cap contrasts sharply with brilliant violet-blue young gills and a thick white club-shaped stem. Rusty brown spores overtake the blue with age.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Ear-pick Fungus
Toothed
A miniature dark brown toothed fungus with a kidney-shaped hairy cap on a slender side-attached stalk, growing directly from decaying pine cones. Its shape recalls an old-fashioned ear-pick.
Spore print · White
Porcini
Boletes
The archetypal stout bolete, with a smooth brown bun-shaped cap, white pores ageing yellow-olive, and a swollen pale stipe netted with fine white reticulation. Flesh stays white and unchanging when cut.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Scurfy Twiglet
Gilled
A small tawny-brown mushroom of woodchip beds and fallen twigs, recognised by the whitish scurfy veil flecks along its cap margin and its strongly hygrophanous, fading cap.
Spore print · Pale ochre-brown
Mild Milkcap
Gilled
A small, abundant reddish-brown milkcap of beech litter with a dry unzoned cap, crowded pale gills and copious white latex that dries whey-like on the gills. It often fruits in large troops beneath mature beech.
Spore print · Cream to pale buff
Hen of the Woods
Polypores
A large rosette of many overlapping grey-brown spoon-shaped caps rising from a branched white stalk at the foot of oaks, with a white pore surface running down the branches.
Spore print · White
Stinking Dapperling
Gilled
A small white dapperling whose cap carries a smooth reddish-brown central disc surrounded by rings of small brown scales. It grows in troops on lawns, verges and woodland margins and has a sharp rubbery odour.
Spore print · White
Yellowfoot Dapperling
Gilled
A slim woodland dapperling with a shaggy ochre-brown scaly cap and a stem sheathed below the ring in loose yellow woolly veil, brightest toward the base. Its large spindle-shaped spores give the species its name.
Spore print · White
Shield Pinkgill
Gilled
A spring-fruiting pinkgill of hedgerows and orchards, with a grey-brown shield-shaped cap and a strict association with rose-family shrubs and trees.
Spore print · Pink
Redlead Roundhead
Gilled
An unmistakable scarlet to orange-red mushroom of woodchip mulch, with a sticky cap, whitish fibrillose stem and dark purple-brown gills.
Spore print · Purple-brown
Beautiful Bonnet
Gilled
A tufted wood bonnet with a pale ochre-brown cap and a striking bright yellow stipe, most often found on beech. The contrast between pale cap and vivid stem base gives it its name.
Spore print · White
Bruising Webcap
Gilled
A robust webcap with a slimy streaky olive-brown cap whose violet gills and flesh flush deep purple wherever they are rubbed or cut.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Graceful Bolete
Boletes
A slim, long-stemmed bolete with a velvety chestnut cap, white pores that age flesh-pink, and an unusual pinkish-brown spore print.
Spore print · Pinkish to reddish-brown
Dingy Twiglet
Gilled
A small, sombre olive-brown woodland mushroom with a finely velvety cap and a pale frosted gill edge, fruiting on fallen deciduous branches.
Spore print · Olive-brown to snuff brown
Frosty Webcap
Gilled
A small, slender birch webcap whose dark greyish-brown cap is dusted with fine white fibrils like hoar frost. The slim stem carries whitish veil girdles above a hygrophanous, umbonate cap.
Spore print · Rusty brown