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 “Thin-maze Flat Polypore”
Oakmoss
Other Fungi
A soft, antler-branched lichen with flattened straps that are greenish above and chalky white beneath, forming tufts on oak and other deciduous bark.
Spore print · Not applicable
Netted Crust
Crusts
A soft, whitish-cream crust whose fertile surface is a shallow net of low wrinkles, with free cottony margins that peel away into small flaps.
Spore print · White
False Coral
Corals & Clubs
A pale, tough, coral-like fungus whose flattened branches fuse sideways into fan-shaped or rosette-like masses on woodland soil. It looks like a coral fungus but belongs to the jelly fungus lineage.
Spore print · White
Golden Oyster
Gilled
A clustered oyster mushroom with bright lemon to golden-yellow caps that flatten into shallow funnels, with white decurrent gills on fused off-centre stalks.
Spore print · White to pale lilac-grey
Sandy Stiltball
Puffballs
A striking fungus with a tall, woody, shaggily scaled stalk rising from a buried sac-like volva and topped by a flattened disc of rusty-brown spore powder. It grows on dry, sandy, nutrient-poor soil.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Golden Scalycap
Gilled
A striking golden-orange Pholiota that fruits from wounds high on broadleaf trunks, with a glutinous cap bearing flattened darker scales and a rusty spore print.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Western Giant Puffball
Puffballs
A very large white puffball of dry western rangeland, its surface broken into a mosaic of flattened polygonal warts. The interior is uniformly white when young and turns to olive-brown powder with age.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Cedar-Apple Rust
Other Fungi
A rust fungus that alternates between junipers, where it forms brown galls that push out orange gelatinous horns in spring rain, and apples, where it makes bright orange leaf spots.
Spore print · Not applicable
Weeping Widow
Gilled
A shaggy tawny-brown grassland mushroom whose blackening gills bead with dark droplets in humid weather. The hairy cap, veil-fringed margin and near-black spore print make it distinctive.
Spore print · Very dark brown to blackish
Pig's Ears
Cups & Discs
A large reddish-brown ascomycete that begins as a deep cup and flattens into a wrinkled, ear-like saucer on decaying conifer wood. Its short ribbed stub of a stalk and pale, scurfy underside separate it from the true cup fungi.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Candlesnuff Fungus
Other Fungi
A small upright wood-rotting fungus whose black, flattened clubs are dusted white at the tips, giving the look of a freshly snuffed candle wick. It is one of the most common and longest-lasting fungi on old hardwood stumps.
Spore print · Black
Fluted Black Elfin Saddle
Cups & Discs
A striking grey to charcoal ascomycete with a crumpled saddle-shaped head raised on a deeply fluted, chambered stalk. Its dark colour makes it hard to spot against woodland litter despite its size.
Spore print · White
Stinking Earthfan
Corals & Clubs
An upright, tough, coral-like fungus with purple- to blackish-brown branches ending in flattened, whitish, fan-shaped tips, growing from soil in conifer woodland. Its strong, penetrating odour usually announces it before it is seen.
Spore print · Purple-brown
Veined Cup
Cups & Discs
A broad, almost stalkless brown disc whose inner surface is scored with prominent radiating veins, found on damp ground in spring. A strong chlorine-like odour and the pale, mealy outer surface make it easy to recognise.
Spore print · White to cream
California Golden Chanterelle
Gilled
The largest chanterelle known, producing massive golden-orange fruit bodies under California's coast live oaks. Its sheer bulk, thick white flesh and blunt forking ridges make it unmistakable in its range.
Spore print · Pale yellow to cream
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)
Bear's Head Tooth
Toothed
A large white hardwood fungus built from branching arms whose tips carry dense tufts of long, icicle-like spines. Its cascading, shaggy outline makes it one of the most recognisable fungi in eastern North American forests.
Spore print · White
Hemlock Varnish Shelf
Polypores
A shiny, varnish-coated bracket with a mahogany-red upper surface and creamy white pore layer, fruiting almost exclusively on dead eastern hemlock. Its lacquered finish and conifer substrate make it one of the most recognisable shelf fungi of northern forests.
Spore print · Brown
Small Stagshorn
Jellies
Small, tough-gelatinous yellow spikes that stand upright in groups along dead hardwood, usually unbranched and rarely more than a couple of centimetres tall.
Spore print · White to pale yellowish
Nitrous Waxcap
Gilled
A drab grey-brown waxcap identified less by colour than by its sharp nitrous, bleach-like smell and fibrous, matt cap.
Spore print · White
Aspen Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
A North American oyster mushroom restricted to dead aspen and cottonwood, with pale fleshy caps in overlapping shelves and a buff-tinted rather than lilac spore print.
Spore print · White to pale buff
Tan Ear
Cups & Discs
A dull leather-tan ear fungus that opens into a broader, shallower split cup than its relatives, fruiting on humus in deciduous and mixed woodland.
Spore print · White
Pinwheel Mushroom
Gilled
A minute white mushroom shaped like a pleated parachute on a wiry black stalk, unique for gills that attach to a free collar around the stipe rather than to the stipe itself.
Spore print · White
Pleated Inkcap
Gilled
A tiny, exquisitely pleated grey mushroom that opens like a paper parasol on lawns after rain and collapses by the afternoon. Its gills attach to a collar rather than the stipe.
Spore print · Black