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 “Wood Ear”
Wet Rot Fungus
Crusts
A thin, closely attached crust that starts creamy white and matures to olive- or umber-brown, its surface roughened with small warts and lumps. It grows on persistently wet dead wood outdoors and on damp timber indoors.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Coral Tooth Fungus
Toothed
A delicately branched white fungus whose thin arms carry short spines in neat rows along their undersides. It grows on dead broadleaf wood and looks like a piece of white marine coral fixed to a log.
Spore print · White
Russet Toughshank
Gilled
One of the commonest litter mushrooms of oak woods: a smooth russet-brown cap on a slim, tough, hollow stem, fruiting in troops for much of the year.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Grey Milkcap
Gilled
A thin-fleshed lilac-grey milkcap of damp birch woods whose white latex dries grey-green on the gills. The greasy, smooth cap and grey-staining pale gills are its key marks.
Spore print · Pale cream
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
Bloody Brittlegill
Gilled
A firm pine-wood brittlegill with a matt blood-red cap and a stipe usually flushed the same colour. Its slightly decurrent cream gills and dry cap skin set it apart from other red species.
Spore print · 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
Grass-green Russula
Gilled
An evenly grass-green brittlegill of birch woods, distinguished by its smooth unpatched cap, cream-ochre spore print and rusty spotting on ageing gills.
Spore print · Cream to pale ochre
Copper Brittlegill
Gilled
A sturdy orange-brown brittlegill of northern pine woods whose white flesh and stipe turn ash-grey and finally blackish as the fruiting body ages.
Spore print · Pale ochre
Tremella encephala
Jellies
A pale pink to whitish gelatinous blob with brain-like folds, growing on conifer wood alongside its host crust fungus. Cutting one in half reveals a firm white core, a feature no other jelly of this colour shows.
Spore print · White
Pearly Parachute
Gilled
A pale, silky-capped litter mushroom of beech woods, faintly washed with lilac-grey and growing in loose tufts from a white woolly base in the leaf mould.
Spore print · White
Inocybe erubescens
Gilled
A stout, silky white fibrecap of chalky beech and lime woods that reddens conspicuously where handled or aged. Its spring fruiting and radially split cap are characteristic.
Spore print · Clay brown
American Caesar's Mushroom
Gilled
A brilliant red-to-orange Amanita of eastern North American oak and pine woods, with yellow gills, a yellow-orange skirt ring and a thick white sac at the base.
Spore print · White
Lake's Bolete
Boletes
A scaly reddish-brown bolete of Douglas-fir woods with large radial yellow pores and a ring zone. Flesh at the very stalk base often flushes blue-green.
Spore print · Olive-brown to cinnamon
Tear Dropper
Crusts
A thin, closely attached crust fungus on dead conifer wood whose cream to pale ochre surface is roughened with fine spines and often beaded with clear droplets when fresh. It is one of the small resupinate fungi easiest to name by that weeping habit.
Spore print · White
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
Willow Shield
Gilled
A slender grey to greenish-grey shield mushroom of damp riverside woods, with free gills that turn salmon-pink, a pale stem often bluing at the base, and a pink spore print.
Spore print · Pink
Viscid Violet Cort
Gilled
A slimy violet-capped webcap of eastern North American oak woods that develops pale yellowish spots and streaks as it ages. The viscid stem and rusty spore print confirm the genus.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Russell's Bolete
Boletes
A tall, elegant bolete of eastern oak woods, instantly known by its extraordinarily long stipe carved with deep, ragged, shaggy ridges and by its cracked olive-brown cap.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Tumbling Puffball
Puffballs
A smooth round puffball that sheds its white outer skin to reveal a bronze to purplish-grey shell, hanging from a single tough cord until it breaks free and rolls. Common in open woods and pasture across North America.
Spore print · Olive-brown to dark brown
Pale Milkcap
Gilled
A plain, pale pinkish-buff milkcap of beech woods with a smooth, slightly greasy cap, crowded pale gills and copious white latex that does not change colour. Its very lack of markings is its most useful field character.
Spore print · Pale cream
Dry Rot Fungus
Crusts
A flat, spreading wood-decay fungus forming rusty-brown wrinkled sheets edged with a thick white cottony margin, best known from structural conifer timber in damp buildings. Its pale, cord-like strands can travel long distances across masonry.
Spore print · Rusty brown
American Parasol
Gilled
A stout parasol with concentric reddish-brown scales over a white cap and a spindle-shaped stem, whose flesh and surfaces stain wine-red to reddish-brown wherever they are handled. It fruits in clusters on wood chips, sawdust and old stumps rather than in undisturbed forest soil.
Spore print · White
Weeping Bolete
Boletes
A slippery cinnamon-brown bolete of pine woods whose pale yellow pores exude milky droplets in humid weather, giving it its name. The ringless stalk is dusted with fine brown granular dots.
Spore print · Cinnamon-brown