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 Clustered Bonnet, Trooping Funnel

Horse Mushroom

Horse Mushroom

Gilled

A large, robust white grassland Agaricus with a distinctive double 'cogwheel' ring, greyish-white young gills that turn chocolate-brown, and a strong aniseed odour. It forms troops and rings in open pasture.

Spore print · Dark chocolate-brown

Orange Peel Fungus

Orange Peel Fungus

Cups & Discs

Brilliant orange, thin and brittle cups that flatten, split and contort until they look exactly like scattered pieces of orange peel. It fruits in troops on bare compacted soil, track sides and gravelly ground.

Spore print · White

Stinking Dapperling

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

Field Mushroom

Field Mushroom

Gilled

The classic white mushroom of old pasture, with a dry silky cap, a thin fragile ring and gills that are a vivid bright pink when young before turning chocolate-brown. It fruits in troops and rings after rain.

Spore print · Dark brown

Meadow Mushroom

Meadow Mushroom

Gilled

The classic white grassland Agaricus, with free gills that shift from bright pink to chocolate-brown, a simple fragile ring and a dark brown spore print. It appears in troops and rings on old pasture after rain.

Spore print · Dark chocolate-brown

Hedgehog Mushroom

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

Liver Milkcap

Liver Milkcap

Gilled

A small dark liver-brown milkcap of pine litter on acid soils, whose white latex turns clear yellow when blotted onto a white cloth. It fruits late in the season, often in dense troops among needles and moss.

Spore print · Pale cream with pinkish tinge

Black Trumpet

Black Trumpet

Other Fungi

A thin, hollow, vase-shaped fungus in dark grey to almost black, with a smooth or faintly wrinkled outer fertile surface and no true gills. It grows in dense troops in deep leaf litter, where its colouring makes it remarkably hard to see.

Spore print · White to 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