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 Roll-rim

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

American Parasol

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

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

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

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)

Red Cage Fungus

Red Cage Fungus

Stinkhorns

A stinkhorn that emerges from a white egg as a hollow, red, net-like sphere, its inner arms smeared with olive-brown spore slime. It is common in mulched garden beds and disturbed ground in warm-temperate regions.

Spore print · Not applicable

Mild Milkcap

Mild Milkcap

Gilled

A small, abundant reddish-brown milkcap of beech litter with a dry unzoned cap, crowded pale gills and copious white latex that dries whey-like on the gills. It often fruits in large troops beneath mature beech.

Spore print · Cream to pale buff

Shield Pinkgill

Gilled

A spring-fruiting pinkgill of hedgerows and orchards, with a grey-brown shield-shaped cap and a strict association with rose-family shrubs and trees.

Spore print · Pink

Oak Curtain Crust

Oak Curtain Crust

Crusts

Thin, dark rust-brown tiers with wavy edges draped along oak stumps, with a velvety, smooth fertile surface and no pores.

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