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 “Honey Fungus / Honey Mushroom”
Golden Coral
Corals & Clubs
A large, richly golden branched coral rising from a short whitish trunk, fruiting from soil in broadleaf woodland. Branch and tip colour is nearly uniform, without pink or salmon tones.
Spore print · Pale ochre-yellow
Crimped Gill
Gilled
A tiny, tough bracket that forms tiered rows of tawny-zoned fans on fallen hardwood branches, its underside covered in crimped, forking white folds rather than true gills.
Spore print · White
Crowded Parchment
Crusts
Dense masses of small, thin, orange-tan fans that fuse along their edges to sheathe fallen hardwood twigs and branches. The underside is smooth and unbroken, with no pores or wrinkles.
Spore print · White
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)
Native Bread
Polypores
An Australian polypore whose small funnel-shaped cap rises on a stalk from a large, hard, marbled underground sclerotium buried in forest soil.
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
Veiled Oyster
Gilled
A stout, thick-fleshed white oyster with a felty-scaly cap surface and a partial veil that leaves a fringed cap margin or a fleeting ring on the off-centre stipe. It fruits singly or in small groups from wounds on standing hardwoods.
Spore print · White
Matsutake
Gilled
A dense, heavy, white-fleshed woodland mushroom overlaid with cinnamon-brown fibrous scales, carrying a thick flaring ring and a strongly aromatic odour, fruiting in arcs beneath pine.
Spore print · White
Wood Blewit
Gilled
A thick-set, late-season woodland agaric coloured violet throughout when young, with a smooth greasy cap, sinuate lilac gills, a fibrous ringless stem and a pale pink spore print.
Spore print · Pale pink
Ceramic Parchment
Crusts
A hard, long-lived crust that breaks into small pale tiles separated by dark cracks, looking exactly like crazed ceramic glaze on bare oak wood.
Spore print · White
Magpie Inkcap
Gilled
A tall, dramatic inkcap whose blackish-brown cap is broken into a pied pattern by large white felty veil patches. It stands singly in deep beech litter on lime-rich soils and dissolves into black ink within a day.
Spore print · Black
White Coral Jelly
Jellies
A cluster of thin, translucent white gelatinous lobes that fan out from dead branches like a frozen flower or a piece of crumpled tissue. Its near-colourless, seaweed-like fronds set it apart from every other jelly fungus.
Spore print · White
Green Elfcup
Cups & Discs
A tiny turquoise cup fungus whose mycelium stains rotting hardwood a vivid blue-green. The stain is visible all year, while the small stalked saucers appear mainly in damp autumn weather.
Spore print · White
Saffron Milkcap
Gilled
A pine-associated milkcap with a concentrically zoned carrot-orange funnel cap, decurrent orange gills, carrot-coloured latex and a pitted stem, the whole fungus staining dull green where damaged.
Spore print · Pale ochre to buff
Mica Cap
Gilled
A small tawny-honey inkcap with a deeply grooved cap sparkling with mica-like granules when fresh, fruiting in dense clusters at the base of hardwood stumps.
Spore print · Dark brown to blackish
Meadow Coral
Corals & Clubs
A yellow to apricot grassland coral whose slender branches fork repeatedly into blunt antler tips above a distinctly white, downy base. Common in mossy, unimproved turf.
Spore print · White
Toad's Ear
Cups & Discs
The darkest of the ear fungi, forming robust dark brown to almost blackish ear-shaped cups split down one side on woodland soil.
Spore print · White
Yellowing Curtain Crust
Crusts
A tiered bracket-forming crust with a velvety, concentrically zoned upper surface and a smooth pale underside that stains distinctly yellow where it is scratched. The yellow bruising is its defining field character.
Spore print · White
Hairy Rubber Cup
Cups & Discs
A tough, rubbery goblet with a smooth reddish-brown disc set inside a blackish, densely bristly cup. Its gelatinous-rubbery texture is unlike that of any other brown woodland cup.
Spore print · White
Golden Ear
Jellies
A deep golden-orange jelly fungus forming firm, ear- or petal-shaped lobes on hardwood, always accompanied by the hairy brackets of Stereum hirsutum, the host it parasitises.
Spore print · White
Bleeding Oak Crust
Crusts
An oak-loving crust that spreads over dead wood and turns out small hairy tan brackets along its edge, releasing red droplets from a scratch on fresh tissue. It is thinner and more clearly reflexed than its broadleaf relatives.
Spore print · White
Artist's Conk
Polypores
A large perennial shelf fungus with a hard, lumpy grey-brown crust and a chalk-white pore surface that instantly bruises dark brown where scratched, the feature behind its name.
Spore print · Brown
Felt-ringed Agaricus
Gilled
A stout western North American Agaricus recognised by its thick felty ring with cottony patches, pinkish-brown fibrillose cap and yellow-staining bulbous base.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
California Agaricus
Gilled
A common lawn and garden Agaricus of the Pacific coast, with a pale silky cap, a flaring patch-bearing ring and pale greyish rather than bright pink young gills.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown