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 “Old Man of the Woods”
Coffee Leaf Rust
Other Fungi
A tropical rust that dusts the undersides of coffee leaves with vivid orange-yellow powder beneath pale translucent spots on the upper surface.
Spore print · Not applicable (bright orange spore masses)
Hammered Shield Lichen
Other Fungi
A grey foliose lichen whose lobes are embossed with a network of white ridges and shallow pits, looking like hammered metal, with soredia along the ridge lines.
Spore print · Not applicable
Berkeley's Polypore
Polypores
One of the largest fungi of eastern North American forests, forming a massive rosette of thick cream to tan fans with coarse angular pores at the base of oaks.
Spore print · White
Bloody Milkcap
Gilled
A pine-associated milkcap of southern limestone woodland whose flesh releases dark blood-red latex the instant it is cut, with no orange phase at all.
Spore print · Pale cream to buff
Black-footed Polypore
Polypores
A stalked polypore with a polished chestnut-brown, funnel-shaped cap and minute white pores, recognised instantly by the inky black lower half of its stem.
Spore print · White
Bearded Fieldcap
Gilled
A firm, pale cream fieldcap of grassy places whose cap often cracks in dry weather and hangs shreds of white veil from the margin, giving it a bearded look.
Spore print · Dull brown to snuff brown
White King Bolete
Boletes
A pale, almost white-capped king bolete of the American Southwest, growing with ponderosa pine and oak. Whitish stipe with a fine white net and unchanging white flesh.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Cauliflower Mushroom
Corals & Clubs
A large cream-coloured rosette of flattened, crimped, ribbon-like lobes that grows at the base of conifers, resembling a cauliflower head or a bath sponge.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Scurfy Twiglet
Gilled
A small tawny-brown mushroom of woodchip beds and fallen twigs, recognised by the whitish scurfy veil flecks along its cap margin and its strongly hygrophanous, fading cap.
Spore print · Pale ochre-brown
Myrtle Rust
Other Fungi
A rust of the myrtle family that coats expanding shoots, buds and young leaves in startling egg-yolk yellow spore powder, later leaving grey-brown scarred and distorted tissue.
Spore print · Not applicable (bright yellow spore masses)
Red Edge Brittlestem
Gilled
A delicate brittlestem with a small bell-shaped cap on a long, thread-like white stem, and gills whose edges are flushed pink to reddish. The stem base often tapers into a rooting point.
Spore print · Blackish purple-brown
Vinegar Cup
Cups & Discs
A deep brown goblet-shaped cup whose pale, branching ribs run up from a stout base far onto the outside of the bowl. It fruits in spring on lime-rich soil at woodland edges and along paths.
Spore print · White
Umber-brown Puffball
Puffballs
A small pear-shaped puffball of mossy conifer woodland, clothed in slender dark brown spines and opening by a neat apical pore. The interior matures from white to umber-brown powder.
Spore print · Umber to olive-brown
White Pine Blister Rust
Other Fungi
A two-host rust that raises orange, blister-like sacs on the bark of five-needle pines and clothes currant leaf undersides with yellow pustules and hair-like brown columns.
Spore print · Not applicable (orange-yellow spore masses)
Southern Bracket
Polypores
A heavy, perennial bracket with a thick, hard, dull brown crust and a white pore surface that bruises brown at a touch. Clouds of cocoa-brown spores often dust the bracket and everything below it in late summer.
Spore print · Cocoa brown
Variable Oysterling
Gilled
A tiny stalkless white fungus that grows in numbers on the underside of dead twigs and stems, its felted fan-shaped cap paired with a distinctive pale pinkish-brown spore print.
Spore print · Pale pinkish-brown
Terracotta Hedgehog
Toothed
A small orange-buff hedgehog fungus whose cap underside carries crowded brittle spines instead of gills. It is slimmer and distinctly warmer in colour than the common Wood Hedgehog.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Velvet Rollrim
Gilled
A robust brown mushroom of conifer stumps with a suede-textured inrolled cap, decurrent forking gills that peel away from the flesh, and a thick stem clad in dark brown-black velvet.
Spore print · Yellowish-brown
Milking Bonnet
Gilled
A small grey-brown bonnet of woodland litter whose slender stem releases a white milky drop when snapped. Blackish and pure white colour forms occur alongside the typical grey.
Spore print · White
Parasola auricoma
Gilled
A delicate pleated inkcap of mulch and path edges whose young cap carries scattered stiff brown hairs, visible with a hand lens, that give the species its golden-haired name.
Spore print · Black
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
Crested Coral
Corals & Clubs
A small white coral fungus whose branch tips split into fine crests like miniature antlers. It grows from woodland soil and is often blackened at the base by a parasitic fungus.
Spore print · White
Tree Lungwort
Other Fungi
A large leafy lichen whose deeply ridged and pitted lobes resemble lung tissue, growing on the trunks of veteran broadleaf trees in humid, long-established woodland.
Spore print · Not applicable
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