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 Orange Moss Omphalina (likely)

Flaming Scalycap

Flaming Scalycap

Gilled

A brilliant golden-yellow scalycap covered in pointed sulphur-yellow scales on both cap and stipe, fruiting on mossy conifer stumps and logs.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Bleeding Bonnet

Bleeding Bonnet

Gilled

A minute reddish bonnet that releases dark blood-red juice from its thread-like stem and carries matching dark red edges along its gills. It fruits in mossy litter in both conifer and broadleaf woodland.

Spore print · White

Cinnamon Webcap

Cinnamon Webcap

Gilled

A small slender webcap with a silky cinnamon-brown cap, crowded saffron to golden-yellow gills and a yellow-olive stipe, fruiting in mossy conifer woodland.

Spore print · Rusty brown

White Coral

White Coral

Corals & Clubs

A delicate, chalk-white coral that branches repeatedly into fine upright arms with blunt tips. Grows from soil and litter in woodland and mossy clearings.

Spore print · White

Greenfoot Fibrecap

Greenfoot Fibrecap

Gilled

A dark, densely shaggy fibrecap whose stipe base is stained a vivid blue-green. A distinctive species of damp mossy conifer woodland and boggy ground.

Spore print · Dull brown

Galerina marginata

Galerina marginata

Gilled

A small, ringed, tawny-brown wood-rotting agaric with a strongly hygrophanous cap and a rusty spore print, fruiting in troops on decaying logs and mossy stumps.

Spore print · Rust-brown

Winter Chanterelle

Winter Chanterelle

Gilled

A slender brown funnel-shaped chanterelle with shallow grey-lilac forking ridges and a hollow yellow stem, fruiting in mossy conifer woodland late in the season.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Meadow Coral

Meadow Coral

Corals & Clubs

A yellow to apricot grassland coral whose slender branches fork repeatedly into blunt antler tips above a distinctly white, downy base. Common in mossy, unimproved turf.

Spore print · White

Pelargonium Webcap

Pelargonium Webcap

Gilled

A small, dark, white-frosted webcap with violaceous young gills, a slender girdled stem and a penetrating smell of pelargonium leaves. Typical of mossy birch and conifer woodland.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Violet Coral

Violet Coral

Corals & Clubs

An unmistakable amethyst to magenta-violet coral fungus forming small tufts of blunt-tipped branches in old grassland and mossy woodland. Its intense colour is unmatched among temperate corals.

Spore print · White

Umber-brown Puffball

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

Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic

Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic

Puffballs

A small, brilliant red spore ball with star-shaped lips, sheathed in clear jelly and raised on a stalk of tangled gelatinous cords. It grows on bare mossy clay banks in oak-rich hardwood forest.

Spore print · Pale yellowish to whitish

Yellowing Brittlegill

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

Hairy Earthtongue

Hairy Earthtongue

Other Fungi

A small black club or tongue standing upright in mossy turf, its whole surface matt and velvety from projecting bristles. It is a classic indicator of old unimproved waxcap grassland.

Spore print · Brown-black

Toothed Cup

Toothed Cup

Cups & Discs

A small greyish-buff cup whose margin is cut into neat little teeth, growing on damp bare soil and mossy woodland paths. The toothed rim and pale, dull colouring set it apart from other soil cups.

Spore print · White

Winter Stalkball

Puffballs

A miniature stalked puffball with a pea-sized spore sac raised on a slender woody stalk, opening by a small tubular mouth ringed with darker colour. It grows in mossy sand and old mortared walls, mainly in winter.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Yellowfoot

Yellowfoot

Gilled

A slender late-season funnel fungus with a brown perforated cap, greyish blunt ridges and a hollow, bright yellow stalk. It carpets mossy conifer floors and well-rotted wood in large troops.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Woolly Tooth

Woolly Tooth

Toothed

A thin, leathery toothed fungus forming zoned cinnamon funnels that fuse into rosettes across mossy conifer floors. Its white spore print separates it from the similar brown-spored Hydnellum species.

Spore print · White

Hedgehog Mushroom

Hedgehog Mushroom

Toothed

A cream to pale apricot mushroom whose underside is covered in crowded, brittle, easily detached spines instead of gills or pores. It grows in troops and arcs on mossy woodland floors and often has an off-centre stipe.

Spore print · White to cream

Velvet Milkcap

Velvet Milkcap

Gilled

A striking dark chocolate-brown milkcap with a dry velvety, wrinkled cap and startlingly white gills, whose white latex stains the flesh salmon-pink. It grows with spruce and fir in mossy northern and montane conifer forest.

Spore print · Pale yellow to ochre

Witch's Butter

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

Honey Fungus

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

Honey Mushroom

Honey Mushroom

Gilled

A clustered honey-coloured woodland fungus with a finely scaly cap, a thick woolly ring and black bootlace-like cords running under the bark of its host. It is one of the most important tree parasites in temperate forests.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Bear's Head Tooth

Bear's Head Tooth

Toothed

A large white hardwood fungus built from branching arms whose tips carry dense tufts of long, icicle-like spines. Its cascading, shaggy outline makes it one of the most recognisable fungi in eastern North American forests.

Spore print · White