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 “Chicken of the Woods”
Hollyhock Rust
Other Fungi
A short-cycle rust of the mallow family that studs hollyhock leaf undersides with orange-brown wart-like pustules, each matched by a yellow spot above.
Spore print · Not applicable (brown spore masses)
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
Splendid Waxcap
Gilled
One of the largest scarlet waxcaps, with a deep blood-red cap, yellow-flushed decurrent gills, and a honey-like scent as it dries.
Spore print · White
Bloody Brittlegill
Gilled
A firm pine-wood brittlegill with a matt blood-red cap and a stipe usually flushed the same colour. Its slightly decurrent cream gills and dry cap skin set it apart from other red species.
Spore print · Pale cream
Candlesnuff Fungus
Other Fungi
A small upright wood-rotting fungus whose black, flattened clubs are dusted white at the tips, giving the look of a freshly snuffed candle wick. It is one of the most common and longest-lasting fungi on old hardwood stumps.
Spore print · Black
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
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
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
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
Anther Smut
Other Fungi
A smut of the pink family that replaces a flower's pollen with a dusty violet-brown spore mass, turning campion anthers into spore dispensers carried by pollinating insects.
Spore print · Not applicable (violet-brown spore mass)
White King Bolete
Boletes
A pale, almost white-capped king bolete of the American Southwest, growing with ponderosa pine and oak. Whitish stipe with a fine white net and unchanging white flesh.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Ochre Brittlegill
Gilled
One of the most abundant woodland brittlegills, with a plain dull ochre-yellow cap, pale cream gills and a white stipe that greys distinctly with age and wet weather.
Spore print · Pale cream
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
Golden Brittlegill
Gilled
A small, brightly coloured brittlegill with one of the deepest yellow spore prints in the genus. Its cap ranges through gold, apricot, orange and rose, often on a single flush.
Spore print · Deep yellow to ochre
Midden Inkcap
Gilled
A miniature counterpart of the Shaggy Inkcap that lives on manure heaps, with a white scaly cylindrical cap, a slender ringed stem and the same rapid melt into black ink.
Spore print · Black
Berkeley's Polypore
Polypores
One of the largest fungi of eastern North American forests, forming a massive rosette of thick cream to tan fans with coarse angular pores at the base of oaks.
Spore print · White
Parrot Waxcap
Gilled
A small, wholly glutinous waxcap that emerges bottle-green and then fades through yellow, orange and pink, usually keeping a green flush at the top of the slimy stem.
Spore print · White
Bronze Bolete
Boletes
The darkest member of the porcini group, with a sooty bronze to almost black velvety cap over a brown stipe finely netted in pale lines. Flesh white and unchanging.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Tear Dropper
Crusts
A thin, closely attached crust fungus on dead conifer wood whose cream to pale ochre surface is roughened with fine spines and often beaded with clear droplets when fresh. It is one of the small resupinate fungi easiest to name by that weeping habit.
Spore print · White
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
Arched Earthstar
Puffballs
A tall earthstar that stands on four arched, leg-like rays with their tips anchored in a cup of mycelium, holding the stalked spore sac well clear of the ground.
Spore print · Dark brown (spore mass)
Rosy Earthstar
Puffballs
One of the larger earthstars, with thick fleshy rays that flush pinkish-red on their inner surface when fresh and a stalkless buff spore sac with a silky, ungrooved mouth.
Spore print · Brown (spore mass)
Rosy Conk
Polypores
A small, tough perennial bracket whose dull grey-brown top gives no hint of the striking rose-pink pore surface beneath. Pink flesh running right through the context confirms it.
Spore print · White
Rounded Earthstar
Puffballs
A small earthstar whose stalkless spore sac sits in a saucer of recurved rays, its fibrous mouth ringed by a distinct circular depressed zone. One of the most widespread earthstars worldwide.
Spore print · Brown (spore mass)