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 Brown Fly Agaric or European Brown Blusher

Western Giant Puffball

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

Rosy Conk

Rosy Conk

Polypores

A small, tough perennial bracket whose dull grey-brown top gives no hint of the striking rose-pink pore surface beneath. Pink flesh running right through the context confirms it.

Spore print · White

Star Earthball

Star Earthball

Puffballs

A large, hard earthball that develops underground and then bursts upward, tearing its thick rind into stiff pale rays like a clenched hand opening. The exposed spore mass inside is dark brown.

Spore print · Dark brown to blackish (spore mass)

Fishy Milkcap

Fishy Milkcap

Gilled

A firm, apricot-orange milkcap that bleeds copious white latex and stains every damaged surface rich brown. Its strong shellfish-like odour, developing with age, is the quickest field character.

Spore print · White

Dark Fieldcap

Dark Fieldcap

Gilled

A sombre brown woodland fieldcap with a greasy, wrinkling cap and a persistent membranous ring that stains dark from falling spores. It grows on rich, often calcareous soil along shaded woodland paths.

Spore print · Dark brown

Birch Milkcap

Birch Milkcap

Gilled

A small tawny orange-brown birch associate with a matt, slightly wrinkled cap and a small pointed umbo. Its scanty white latex slowly turns yellow when smeared on a white tissue.

Spore print · Pale cream

The Prince

The Prince

Gilled

One of the largest field mushrooms, with a squarish young cap patterned in fine golden-brown fibrous scales, a big pendulous ring and flesh that yellows slowly where handled. It smells strongly of almonds.

Spore print · Dark brown

Butter Bolete

Butter Bolete

Boletes

A solid golden-pored bolete of warm broadleaf woods, with a dry tan-brown cap, a yellow finely netted stipe and a tapering rooting base. Flesh pale yellow, blueing slowly and weakly.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Button Mushroom

Button Mushroom

Gilled

A stocky white or tan Agaricus with free gills that run from pale pink through cocoa to blackish brown, a simple membranous ring, and no volva at the stem base.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown

Silky Pinkgill

Silky Pinkgill

Gilled

A common small brown grassland pinkgill with a silky, strongly hygrophanous cap, farinaceous smell and pink spore print.

Spore print · Pink

Purple-spored Puffball

Purple-spored Puffball

Puffballs

A large grassland puffball whose mature spore mass turns a distinctive purple-brown and whose sterile base persists through winter as a vase-shaped cup. The skin cracks into polygonal patches as it expands.

Spore print · Purple to purple-brown spore mass

Sculpted Puffball

Sculpted Puffball

Puffballs

A firm white ball of western mountain conifer forests, covered in low pyramidal felty warts each marked by a darker central point. The interior is white and homogeneous before turning to olive-brown powder.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Variable Webcap

Variable Webcap

Gilled

A heavy-bodied webcap with a slightly greasy grey-brown cap, violet-tinted young gills and a swollen club-shaped stem base. It forms mycorrhizal partnerships with spruce and pine in northern and montane woodland.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Hooded False Morel

Hooded False Morel

Morels & Allies

An autumn false morel whose tan to dark reddish-brown cap is folded into a two- or three-lobed saddle or mitre rather than a brain. It grows on well-rotted conifer wood and woody debris.

Spore print · White to pale yellowish

Clustered Bonnet

Clustered Bonnet

Gilled

A small bell-capped bonnet that grows in dense tufts on oak and sweet chestnut stumps, recognised by the finely toothed, scalloped cap edge and a slender stem that turns golden then rusty orange-brown below.

Spore print · White

King Bolete

King Bolete

Boletes

A heavy, bun-shaped brown bolete with a stout swollen white stipe carrying fine pale netting, and a sponge layer that ages from white through cream to olive-yellow without bruising blue.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Snow False Morel

Snow False Morel

Morels & Allies

A squat, heavy false morel with a tan to yellow-brown head of rounded brain-like folds and a short, thick, deeply chambered white stalk. It fruits beside melting snowbanks in western mountain conifer forest.

Spore print · White to pale yellowish

Sandy Stiltball

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

Ear-pick Fungus

Ear-pick Fungus

Toothed

A miniature dark brown toothed fungus with a kidney-shaped hairy cap on a slender side-attached stalk, growing directly from decaying pine cones. Its shape recalls an old-fashioned ear-pick.

Spore print · White

Contrary Webcap

Contrary Webcap

Gilled

A stout conifer webcap whose warm orange-tawny cap contrasts sharply with brilliant violet-blue young gills and a thick white club-shaped stem. Rusty brown spores overtake the blue with age.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Ringless Honey Mushroom

Ringless Honey Mushroom

Gilled

A honey-brown clustered wood fungus that matches the true Honey Mushroom in colour and habit but has no ring at all on its long tapering stem. It swarms in huge tufts around the bases of oaks and other hardwoods.

Spore print · White

Porcini

Porcini

Boletes

The archetypal stout bolete, with a smooth brown bun-shaped cap, white pores ageing yellow-olive, and a swollen pale stipe netted with fine white reticulation. Flesh stays white and unchanging when cut.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Oyster Mushroom

Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

A shelving, shell-shaped mushroom with white decurrent gills running down a short off-centre stem, growing in overlapping tiers on hardwood trunks. Colour varies from slate-grey and brown to almost white.

Spore print · White to lilac-grey

Giant Puffball

Giant Puffball

Puffballs

An unmistakable white sphere that can reach the size of a football or larger, appearing in grassland and hedgerows. It has no stipe, no gills and no cap, and its interior ripens from firm white to a powdery olive-brown spore mass.

Spore print · Olive-brown (spore mass)