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 Red-Capped Butter Bolete

Terracotta Hedgehog

Terracotta Hedgehog

Toothed

A small orange-buff hedgehog fungus whose cap underside carries crowded brittle spines instead of gills. It is slimmer and distinctly warmer in colour than the common Wood Hedgehog.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Yellow-gilled Gymnopilus

Yellow-gilled Gymnopilus

Gilled

A colourful rustgill with a purplish-red, fibrillose-scaly cap and brilliant yellow gills that mature to rust, commonly clustered on wood chip beds.

Spore print · Rusty orange-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

Conifer Mazegill

Conifer Mazegill

Polypores

A tough rust-brown bracket with a bright orange growing margin and an underside of thick, radiating, ochre-brown gill-like plates.

Spore print · White

Redlead Roundhead

Redlead Roundhead

Gilled

An unmistakable scarlet to orange-red mushroom of woodchip mulch, with a sticky cap, whitish fibrillose stem and dark purple-brown gills.

Spore print · Purple-brown

Plums and Custard

Plums and Custard

Gilled

A striking conifer stump mushroom with a yellow cap densely covered in wine-purple fibrillose scales above bright egg-yellow gills.

Spore print · White

Cinnabar Polypore

Cinnabar Polypore

Polypores

An unmistakable bracket coloured vivid orange-red throughout, from the smooth upper surface to the fine pore layer beneath.

Spore print · White

Blushing Wood Mushroom

Blushing Wood Mushroom

Gilled

A brown-scaled woodland Agaricus of conifer litter whose white flesh blushes vivid red within moments of being cut.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown

Bleeding Tooth Fungus

Bleeding Tooth Fungus

Toothed

A knobbly, cream-white tooth fungus whose growing surface exudes vivid blood-red droplets, fruiting in conifer duff and often fusing with its neighbours into irregular crusted masses.

Spore print · Brown

Pine Conk

Pine Conk

Polypores

A woody, perennial bracket that forms hard hoof-shaped conks on the trunks of standing conifers, recognised by its cracked brown upper crust and irregular, maze-like yellow-brown pores.

Spore print · Yellowish brown

Splendid Waxcap

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

False Chanterelle

False Chanterelle

Gilled

A soft orange funnel-capped mushroom with crowded, repeatedly forked, deeply decurrent true gills and a white spore print. Despite the chanterelle-like shape it belongs to the bolete order, not the chanterelles.

Spore print · White to cream

False Saffron Milkcap

False Saffron Milkcap

Gilled

An orange spruce-associated milkcap whose carrot-coloured latex turns wine-red within half an hour and whose flesh and cap green strongly with age.

Spore print · Pale cream

Common Funnel

Common Funnel

Gilled

A slender, pinkish-buff woodland mushroom whose thin cap develops a deep central funnel above crowded white decurrent gills.

Spore print · White

Common Inkcap

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

Tawny Funnel

Tawny Funnel

Gilled

A rusty orange-brown funnel that fruits in dense crowded troops and rings in woodland litter, with very crowded decurrent gills that age to the cap colour.

Spore print · Pale cream

Meadow Waxcap

Meadow Waxcap

Gilled

A robust apricot-buff waxcap with a dry, matt cap, thick pale decurrent gills running well down the stem, and a stout stipe tapering to the base.

Spore print · White

Trooping Funnel

Trooping Funnel

Gilled

A tall, large pale buff funnel that forms sweeping troops and fairy rings along woodland edges, keeping a distinct central bump in the funnel.

Spore print · White

Golden Bootleg

Golden Bootleg

Gilled

A large and striking golden-ochre mushroom of nutrient-rich waste ground, coated in a fine granular powder and carrying a big flaring ring on a sheathed, boot-like stem.

Spore print · Ochre-brown

Golden Waxcap

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

Shaggy Mane

Shaggy Mane

Gilled

A tall white cylindrical mushroom covered in shaggy upturned scales, whose gills blacken and dissolve into an inky liquid from the cap margin upward as it matures.

Spore print · Black

Vermilion Waxcap

Vermilion Waxcap

Gilled

A very small scarlet waxcap whose dry cap is minutely scurfy under a lens, with orange-red gills that run slightly down a smooth red stem.

Spore print · White

Woolly Milkcap

Woolly Milkcap

Gilled

A pink, concentrically banded birch milkcap with a heavily inrolled, shaggily woolly cap margin and copious white latex that does not change colour.

Spore print · Cream

Jelly Baby

Jelly Baby

Jellies

A small rubbery club fungus with a slimy ochre-yellow head perched on a paler stalk, usually appearing in troops on damp woodland soil. Its gelatinous texture and irregular, inrolled cap margin make it unlike any true gilled mushroom.

Spore print · Whitish (rarely taken)