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 Ink Cap

Goblet Waxcap

Goblet Waxcap

Gilled

A small scarlet waxcap shaped like a tiny chanterelle, with a scurfy funnel-shaped cap, deeply decurrent yellow gills and a long slender red stem.

Spore print · White

Field Blewit

Field Blewit

Gilled

A stout grassland mushroom with a plain buff cap set on a striking blue-violet streaked stipe, fruiting in rings in old pasture after the first frosts.

Spore print · Pale pink

Cinnamon Webcap

Cinnamon Webcap

Gilled

A small slender webcap with a silky cinnamon-brown cap, crowded saffron to golden-yellow gills and a yellow-olive stipe, fruiting in mossy conifer woodland.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Aniseed Funnel

Aniseed Funnel

Gilled

An unmistakable woodland funnel with a soft blue-green cap and a powerful aniseed scent, growing scattered through autumn leaf litter under broadleaf trees.

Spore print · Pale cream to very pale pink

Franchet's Amanita

Franchet's Amanita

Gilled

A European amanita with an olive- to grey-brown cap sprinkled with soft yellow warts, a yellow-edged ring, and yellow veil belts on a swollen stem base.

Spore print · White

Grisette

Grisette

Gilled

A slender grey Amanita with a strongly grooved cap margin, free white gills, no ring at all, and a tall white membranous sac enclosing the stem base.

Spore print · White

Beautiful Bonnet

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

Enoki

Enoki

Gilled

A cold-weather wood-rotter forming dense tufts of small, glossy tawny caps above dark velvety stems. Cultivated strains grown in darkness look completely different: long, pale, thread-thin stems with tiny white caps.

Spore print · White

Frosty Webcap

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

Mauve Parachute

Mauve Parachute

Gilled

A jewel-like tropical parachute with a deeply pleated purple-red cap, pale distant gills and a shining black hair of a stem, scattered on fallen twigs and leaves.

Spore print · White

Velvet Shield

Velvet Shield

Gilled

A handsome dark shield mushroom with a network of raised brown veins and scales across the cap and gills edged in a distinct dark brown fringe. It grows on decaying hardwood.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink

Ochre Brittlegill

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

Ugly Milkcap

Ugly Milkcap

Gilled

A dark olive-brown to almost black birch milkcap with a sticky cap, downy inrolled margin and cream gills that stain brown where the white latex dries.

Spore print · Cream

Spring Fieldcap

Spring Fieldcap

Gilled

An early-season fieldcap of woodchip and grassy path edges, with a pale tan cap, a ring on the stipe, white mycelial cords at the base and a dark brown spore print.

Spore print · Dark snuff-brown

Common Stump Brittlestem

Common Stump Brittlestem

Gilled

A densely tufted stump mushroom with a date-brown cap that dries pale from the centre outward, brittle hollow white stems, and dark purple-brown spores.

Spore print · Dark purple-brown

Brown Shaggy Parasol

Brown Shaggy Parasol

Gilled

A robust parasol of gardens and compost-enriched ground, with coarse brown cap scales, reddening flesh, a thick double ring and an abruptly rimmed bulb at the stem base.

Spore print · White

Alder Scalycap

Alder Scalycap

Gilled

A tufted lemon-yellow Pholiota of wet woodland that grows on alder and birch stumps, with a smooth slightly sticky cap, sweetish scent and clay-brown spore print.

Spore print · Clay-brown to rust-brown

Geranium Brittlegill

Geranium Brittlegill

Gilled

A beech-wood brittlegill in which cap, gills and stipe are all the same pale straw-honey colour, identified by that uniformity together with a strong smell of geranium leaves.

Spore print · Pale cream

Yellow-veiled Amanita

Yellow-veiled Amanita

Gilled

A western North American amanita with a dark brown to olive cap sprinkled with vivid golden warts, a yellow-edged ring, and yellow veil belts on the bulbous base.

Spore print · White

Bearded Milkcap

Bearded Milkcap

Gilled

A small pale milkcap of sandy birch ground, recognised by its almost unzoned whitish-pink cap, finely downy inrolled margin and unchanging white latex.

Spore print · Cream

Verdigris Agaric

Verdigris Agaric

Gilled

A striking woodland roundhead with a slimy verdigris blue-green cap flecked with white veil scales at the margin, a scaly ringed stem and gills that mature to purple-brown.

Spore print · Purple-brown

Frost's Amanita

Frost's Amanita

Gilled

A small, brightly coloured eastern amanita with an orange cap, a strongly grooved margin, pale yellow warts, and a rounded bulb finished with a distinct collar-like rim.

Spore print · White

Bronze Bolete

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

Caesar's Mushroom

Caesar's Mushroom

Gilled

A striking Mediterranean Amanita with a smooth orange cap, a strongly grooved margin, deep golden-yellow free gills and stem, and a thick white membranous sac at the base.

Spore print · White to pale cream