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 “Honey Fungus / Honey Mushroom”
Split Gill
Gilled
A small, tough, hairy white fan growing sideways from dead wood, with gill-like folds split lengthwise down the middle that curl open and shut with the weather.
Spore print · White
Indigo Milk Cap
Gilled
An unmistakable milkcap that is indigo blue throughout, cap, gills, stem and latex alike, with a concentrically zoned funnel-shaped cap that stains dull green where bruised or aged.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
Parrot Waxcap
Gilled
A small, wholly glutinous waxcap that emerges bottle-green and then fades through yellow, orange and pink, usually keeping a green flush at the top of the slimy stem.
Spore print · White
Fairy Ring Champignon
Gilled
A tough little tan grassland mushroom with a broad central umbo, widely spaced pale gills and a wiry pliant stipe, famous for growing in expanding fairy rings. Dried fruitbodies revive and refresh after rain.
Spore print · White
Yellow Morel
Morels & Allies
A spring ascomycete with a pale tan to yellow-ochre honeycombed head, its pits irregular and its ridges paler than the pits. Head and stalk are joined at the base and the whole fruiting body is hollow from tip to foot.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
Bovine Bolete
Boletes
A slender pinkish-tan pine bolete recognised by its wide, irregular compound pores that run down the stalk. It is frequently found in company with the pink Rosy Spike.
Spore print · Olive to clay-brown
Velvet Shank
Gilled
A tufted orange-capped mushroom with a slimy cap and a distinctive dark, velvety stem base, fruiting on hardwood stumps in the coldest months. The contrast between the bright cap and near-black stem is the giveaway.
Spore print · White
Yellowing Brittlegill
Gilled
A small, fragile brittlegill whose entire fruiting body — cap, gills, stipe and flesh — discolours a deep honey-yellow with age or handling. It is common in damp mossy conifer woodland.
Spore print · Pale cream
Grey Coral
Corals & Clubs
A small, ash-grey to lilac-grey branched coral of woodland soil, with rather thick, blunt-tipped branches and a white spore print.
Spore print · White
Veiled Polypore
Polypores
A small, hard, pale globe or hoof attached to dead conifer bark, unique among polypores in having its pore surface sealed inside a membranous veil pierced by a single small opening.
Spore print · White
Oak Mazegill
Polypores
A thick, corky, dull-coloured bracket on oak whose underside is carved into a deep labyrinth of thick-walled winding channels.
Spore print · White
Wrinkled Club
Corals & Clubs
A white club fungus with thick, irregularly wrinkled and grooved stems that are unbranched or only sparsely forked. It grows from soil in woodland, often along shaded path edges.
Spore print · White
Moose Antlers
Cups & Discs
Clusters of tall, ear- or antler-shaped rubbery blades rising from a hard underground mass in rich eastern North American hardwood forest.
Spore print · Brownish
Yellow Brain
Jellies
A vivid golden-yellow jelly fungus that erupts in brain-like folded lobes from dead hardwood twigs, shrivelling to a hard crust in dry weather and swelling again after rain.
Spore print · White
Silky Parchment
Crusts
A small, thin, pale fan-shaped crust with a distinctly silky, finely lined upper surface and a smooth whitish underside. It is most often found on the slim dead branches of hornbeam and its relatives.
Spore print · White
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
Witch's Butter
Jellies
A vivid golden-yellow jelly fungus forming convoluted, brain-like blobs on dead branches, most conspicuous in wet winter weather. It is a parasite of crust fungi living in the same wood.
Spore print · White
Orange Pinwheel
Gilled
A vivid rusty-orange miniature with a pleated, umbrella-like cap held on a wiry blackish thread of a stem, scattered through damp hardwood litter.
Spore print · White
Deer Shield
Gilled
The commonest of the shield mushrooms, with a deer-brown silky cap, free gills that turn from white to salmon-pink, and a fibrous ringless stem. It fruits on decaying wood almost year-round.
Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink
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
Common Morel
Morels & Allies
A spring ascomycete with a pitted, honeycomb-like ovoid head fused to a hollow pale stalk, forming one continuous cavity from tip to base.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
Turkey Tail
Polypores
A thin, tough, fan-shaped bracket banded in concentric zones of contrasting colour and texture, growing in overlapping tiers and rosettes on dead hardwood. The underside is a fine white pore surface.
Spore print · White
American Matsutake
Gilled
A heavy white mushroom with cinnamon-stained cap fibrils, notched white gills and a thick sheathing ring, pushing up through sandy conifer duff. Its powerful spicy aroma is unmistakable in the field.
Spore print · White
Mycena chlorophos
Gilled
A minute, translucent grey bonnet of humid Asian and Pacific forests, famous for the pale green light its gills and cap emit after dark.
Spore print · White