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 “Chicken of the Woods”
Arched Earthstar
Puffballs
A tall earthstar that stands on four arched, leg-like rays with their tips anchored in a cup of mycelium, holding the stalked spore sac well clear of the ground.
Spore print · Dark brown (spore mass)
Rosy Earthstar
Puffballs
One of the larger earthstars, with thick fleshy rays that flush pinkish-red on their inner surface when fresh and a stalkless buff spore sac with a silky, ungrooved mouth.
Spore print · Brown (spore mass)
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
Common Bonnet
Gilled
A tough-stemmed grey-brown bonnet with a radially grooved bell-shaped cap and pink-tinged, cross-veined gills, fruiting in tufts on hardwood stumps for most of the year.
Spore print · White
Smooth Chanterelle
Gilled
A bright orange-yellow chanterelle whose underside is almost completely smooth, with only faint wrinkles instead of the usual forking ridges. It is a common summer fungus of eastern oak woodlands.
Spore print · Pale yellow to yellowish-cream
Split Fibrecap
Gilled
A slender ochre-brown woodland fibrecap whose sharply umbonate cap splits radially into coarse straw-coloured fibres. One of the commonest and most recognisable members of a large, difficult genus.
Spore print · Dull clay-brown
Bay Bolete
Boletes
A rich bay-brown bolete whose lemon-yellow pores flush blue-green within seconds of being touched. The stipe is brown-streaked and lacks the raised netting of the King Bolete.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Red Cage
Stinkhorns
A startling stinkhorn that hatches from a whitish egg as a hollow, spherical cage of coral-red spongy arms, with dark olive spore slime lining the inner faces of the mesh.
Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)
King Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
The heaviest of the oyster mushrooms, with a small greyish-tan cap perched on a thick club-shaped white stem, growing from the dead root crowns of umbellifers in dry grassland.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Chestnut Blight
Other Fungi
A bark-inhabiting sac fungus that forms sunken orange-brown cankers studded with pinhead-sized orange fruiting bodies. Fans of buff mycelium spread beneath the cracked bark of the affected stem.
Spore print · Not applicable
Crimson Waxcap
Gilled
The largest of the red waxcaps, with a deep blood-crimson greasy cap, thick waxy yellow-red gills and a fibrous streaky stipe that is distinctly white at the very base.
Spore print · White
Shaggy Parasol
Gilled
A stout, heavily shaggy relative of the Parasol Mushroom with a smooth unbanded stem, a bulbous base and pale flesh that stains saffron then dull reddish brown where it is cut.
Spore print · White
Brown Mottlegill
Gilled
One of the commonest small brown mushrooms of mown lawns, with a two-tone drying cap and mottled dark brown gills that give a dark brown rather than black spore print.
Spore print · Dark brown
Scarlet Caterpillarclub
Other Fungi
A small bright orange club fungus that grows out of the buried pupa or larva of a moth. Digging carefully beneath the club reveals the orange-stained insect from which it arises.
Spore print · White
Macro Mushroom
Gilled
One of the largest white meadow Agaricus species, with a thick cracking cap that can exceed 25 cm and an unusually massive, felty ring. A grassland decomposer of long-established, lightly managed pasture.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Pine Bolete
Boletes
A dark red-brown member of the porcini group tied to pine and spruce, with a bumpy matte cap and a stout stipe bearing a reddish-tinged net over a brown ground.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Rose Black Spot
Other Fungi
A leaf-inhabiting sac fungus that marks rose foliage with sooty black spots bearing radiating, feathered margins and yellow haloes. Affected leaves yellow and drop from the base of the plant upward.
Spore print · Not applicable
Tinder Conk
Polypores
An unmistakable hoof-shaped perennial bracket with a hard grey banded crust and a soft brown fibrous interior. It is one of the classic decay fungi of birch and beech across the northern hemisphere.
Spore print · White to pale yellowish
Honey Fungus
Gilled
A clustered, honey-coloured woodland mushroom with a shaggy ring, white spore print and black bootlace-like rhizomorphs running under bark. It is one of the most significant tree-root parasites in temperate forests.
Spore print · White to 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
Candy Cap
Gilled
A rusty orange-brown milkcap of the Pacific coast with a dry, faintly wrinkled cap and thin watery latex. Dried fruitbodies develop a powerful sweet aroma often likened to maple syrup or fenugreek.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Zombie-Ant Fungus
Other Fungi
A parasitic fungus of carpenter ants that manipulates its host into clamping onto vegetation before killing it, then sends a wiry stalk out of the ant's head to release spores over the trail below.
Spore print · Not applicable
Golden Cup
Cups & Discs
A vivid orange spring cup fungus of conifer duff whose margins and bruised areas stain a distinctive blue-green. It is one of the earliest fungi to appear at the edge of retreating snow.
Spore print · White