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 Common Puffball / Warted Puffball

Iodine Bolete

Iodine Bolete

Boletes

A pale, dry-capped bolete of warm oak woodland with lemon-yellow pores that do not blue and a stipe base whose flesh carries a distinctive iodoform-like odour.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Devil's Bolete

Devil's Bolete

Boletes

A massive, pale-capped bolete of warm limestone woodland, with blood-red pores, a squat bulbous stipe covered in a fine red net, and flesh that blues only slowly.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Fringed Earthstar

Fringed Earthstar

Puffballs

A small, pale, stalkless earthstar whose fibrous mouth is ragged and fringed but never enclosed in a sharply outlined court. One of the commonest earthstars of woodland litter.

Spore print · Brown (spore mass)

Green-spored Parasol

Green-spored Parasol

Gilled

A large lawn parasol of warm regions, unique among the big scaly agarics in dropping a green to grey-green spore print and in having mature gills that dull from white to sage green.

Spore print · Green to greyish-green

Brown Mottlegill

Brown Mottlegill

Gilled

One of the commonest small brown mushrooms of mown lawns, with a two-tone drying cap and mottled dark brown gills that give a dark brown rather than black spore print.

Spore print · Dark brown

Grey Knight

Grey Knight

Gilled

A soft grey knight of pine woods, with a dry cap densely covered in fine radiating fibrils and scales, white sinuate gills and a brittle white stipe. It is the commonest of a confusing group of grey Tricholoma species.

Spore print · White

Stalked Scarlet Cup

Stalked Scarlet Cup

Cups & Discs

A miniature scarlet cup carried on a distinct slender white stalk, fruiting on decaying hardwood sticks in warm, moist woodland.

Spore print · White

Ochre Bracket

Ochre Bracket

Polypores

A close relative of Turkey Tail that is thicker and stiffer, banded in warm ochre, tan and rust tones with a cushion-like swelling at the attachment.

Spore print · White

Rosy Crust

Rosy Crust

Crusts

A thin waxy crust in warm salmon-pink to coral-orange shades, spreading along dead attached twigs of hazel, oak and gorse.

Spore print · White

Deer Shield

Deer Shield

Gilled

The commonest of the shield mushrooms, with a deer-brown silky cap, free gills that turn from white to salmon-pink, and a fibrous ringless stem. It fruits on decaying wood almost year-round.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink

Panaeolus antillarum

Panaeolus antillarum

Gilled

A comparatively large, pale-capped dung mottlegill of warm regions, with a smooth whitish to cream cap that cracks in dry weather and heavily mottled blackening gills.

Spore print · Black

Split Fibrecap

Split Fibrecap

Gilled

A slender ochre-brown woodland fibrecap whose sharply umbonate cap splits radially into coarse straw-coloured fibres. One of the commonest and most recognisable members of a large, difficult genus.

Spore print · Dull clay-brown

Splendid Webcap

Splendid Webcap

Gilled

A vivid sulphur- to chrome-yellow webcap with a viscid cap, yellow gills and a sharply rimmed bulbous stem base. It grows with beech on calcareous soils in warm southern woodland.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Stinking Brittlegill

Stinking Brittlegill

Gilled

A big, stout ochre-brown brittlegill with a slimy cap, a strongly grooved and warty margin and a heavy rancid oily smell, its stout stipe becoming chambered and hollow.

Spore print · Pale cream

Panaeolus cyanescens

Panaeolus cyanescens

Gilled

A slender pale-capped dung mottlegill of warm regions whose flesh and stipe stain blue-green where handled, with mottled black gills and a black spore print.

Spore print · Black

Columned Stinkhorn

Columned Stinkhorn

Stinkhorns

A warm-climate stinkhorn built from two to five thick orange columns that are free at the base and joined in an arch at the top, with dark spore slime on the inner faces of the arch.

Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)

Black Witch's Butter

Black Witch's Butter

Jellies

An olive-black gelatinous fungus forming warty cushions on dead oak branches, its upper surface studded with minute dark pimples that give it a rough, granular look.

Spore print · White

Cinnamon Bracket

Cinnamon Bracket

Polypores

A soft, evenly cinnamon-coloured bracket whose cap, flesh and pores are all the same warm ochre-brown, and which turns brilliant violet where a drop of alkali touches it.

Spore print · White

Fool's Webcap

Fool's Webcap

Gilled

A warm foxy-brown webcap of southern broadleaf woodland with thick, widely spaced saffron-rust gills and a plain yellowish stem carrying only faint cobwebby veil fibres.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Butter Bolete

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

Green Pepe

Green Pepe

Gilled

A very small, sticky-capped tropical Mycena whose gills and stipe emit a soft green light at night. It fruits in clusters on decaying palm fronds, bamboo and twiggy litter after warm rain.

Spore print · White

Contrary Webcap

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

Shield Dapperling

Shield Dapperling

Gilled

A slender woodland dapperling with an ochre-brown scaly cap, a shaggy fringed margin, and a stem sheathed below the vague ring in loose woolly cotton like a rolled-down sock.

Spore print · White