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 Red-capped Scaber Stalk

Chicken Fat Mushroom

Chicken Fat Mushroom

Boletes

A slender bright yellow bolete with a slimy, red-streaked cap and cottony veil fragments on the margin. It grows only with eastern white pine, often in large troops.

Spore print · Cinnamon-brown

Pink Waxcap

Pink Waxcap

Gilled

An unmistakable rose-pink to lilac waxcap whose sharply conical cap splits and flares upward like a ballerina's skirt above a white fibrous stem.

Spore print · White

Coconut Milkcap

Coconut Milkcap

Gilled

A small greyish-lilac birch associate with a dry, finely felty cap and decurrent buff gills. Its powerful coconut-like aroma, strongest in drying material, is the defining character.

Spore print · Pale cream

Fairy Inkcap

Fairy Inkcap

Gilled

A tiny pleated inkcap that fruits in swarming troops of hundreds around hardwood stumps, its pale buff bonnet-shaped caps carried on thread-thin white stems.

Spore print · Blackish brown

Elm Oyster Mushroom

Elm Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

A firm, pale, smooth-capped mushroom that grows from wounds on standing elms and maples, distinguished from true oysters by its stout central-to-eccentric stipe and gills that are notched rather than long-decurrent.

Spore print · White

Spring Polypore

Spring Polypore

Polypores

A small centrally stalked polypore with a scaly tan cap edged in coarse hairs and unusually large angular white pores that run down the stem.

Spore print · White

Native Bread

Polypores

An Australian polypore whose small funnel-shaped cap rises on a stalk from a large, hard, marbled underground sclerotium buried in forest soil.

Spore print · White

Bluing Bolete

Bluing Bolete

Boletes

A pale, shaggy-capped bolete of sandy heathland whose every surface flushes an intense cornflower blue within seconds of being touched or cut.

Spore print · Pale straw yellow

Pestle Puffball

Pestle Puffball

Puffballs

A tall club- or pestle-shaped puffball with a rounded fertile head raised on a long thick sterile stalk. The head wall breaks away completely at maturity, leaving the stalk standing in the litter.

Spore print · Olive-brown spore mass

Royal Bolete

Royal Bolete

Boletes

A striking butter bolete with a rose-pink to purple-red velvety cap over bright yellow pores and a yellow, finely netted stipe. Flesh yellow with little or no blueing.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Pacific Golden Chanterelle

Pacific Golden Chanterelle

Gilled

The large golden funnel-capped chanterelle of Pacific Northwest conifer forests, with blunt forking ridges instead of true gills running down a tapering stem. Its cap surface is finely fibrillose, often with a pinkish or brownish cast.

Spore print · Pale yellow to cream

Panaeolus antillarum

Panaeolus antillarum

Gilled

A comparatively large, pale-capped dung mottlegill of warm regions, with a smooth whitish to cream cap that cracks in dry weather and heavily mottled blackening gills.

Spore print · Black

Entoloma hochstetteri

Entoloma hochstetteri

Gilled

A small, startlingly blue-capped pinkgill of moist southern-hemisphere forests, unmistakable for the metallic indigo colour of its conical cap and slender fibrous stipe.

Spore print · Pink

Black-footed Polypore

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

Golden Oyster

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

Charcoal Scalycap

Charcoal Scalycap

Gilled

A small sticky-capped Pholiota restricted to burnt ground, appearing on old bonfire and campfire sites with a tawny cap, scaly stipe and clay-brown spore print.

Spore print · Clay-brown

Suede Bolete

Suede Bolete

Boletes

A medium bolete with a dry, suede-textured olive-brown cap over large, bright golden-yellow angular pores. The stipe is ribbed rather than netted and lacks red streaking.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Orange Bonnet

Orange Bonnet

Gilled

A minute bonnet with a vivid orange to orange-red cap perched on a slender yellow stem, fruiting on wet twigs and fallen debris. Its size is measured in millimetres but its colour is unmistakable.

Spore print · White

Psathyrella aquatica

Psathyrella aquatica

Gilled

A small brown-capped brittlestem remarkable for producing its fruit bodies fully submerged in flowing cold water, first documented in a spring-fed river in Oregon.

Spore print · Dark brown to blackish brown

Gray Bolete

Gray Bolete

Boletes

A grey-capped hardwood bolete with a whitish stipe wrapped in a bold dark net and a yellow patch at the very base. Pale pores stain brownish where handled.

Spore print · Olive-brown to brown

Bitter Bolete

Bitter Bolete

Boletes

A robust brown-capped bolete with white pores that flush pink with age and a pale stipe carrying a bold dark brown network. Widespread in conifer and mixed woodland.

Spore print · Pinkish-brown

White King Bolete

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

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

Porcelain Fungus

Porcelain Fungus

Gilled

Glistening white, almost translucent caps coated in thick slime, clustered high on dead and dying beech, with a distinct ring on the slender white stem.

Spore print · White