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 “Russula or Lactarius species”
False Coral
Corals & Clubs
A pale, tough, coral-like fungus whose flattened branches fuse sideways into fan-shaped or rosette-like masses on woodland soil. It looks like a coral fungus but belongs to the jelly fungus lineage.
Spore print · White
Cedar-Apple Rust
Other Fungi
A rust fungus that alternates between junipers, where it forms brown galls that push out orange gelatinous horns in spring rain, and apples, where it makes bright orange leaf spots.
Spore print · Not applicable
Golden Scruffy Collybia
Gilled
A small, brilliant orange-yellow woodland mushroom whose cap is studded with pointed, granular scales, contrasting with widely spaced white gills on a shaggy yellow stalk.
Spore print · White
Lion's Mane
Toothed
An unmistakable white cushion of long, downward-hanging spines that grows from wounds on standing hardwoods, looking like a frozen waterfall or a shaggy mane.
Spore print · White
Lurid Bolete
Boletes
A red-pored bolete of limy soils recognised by the coarse red network covering its stipe and by the thin orange-red line revealed just above the tubes when the fruit body is cut lengthways.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Coccora
Gilled
A large, handsome Pacific coast amanita with a deep orange-brown cap that usually carries one thick, felty white patch of veil, a lined margin, and a deep sac-like volva.
Spore print · White
Persistent Waxcap
Gilled
A bright yellow to apricot-orange waxcap with a sharply pointed cap that keeps its colour instead of blackening with age.
Spore print · White
Rosy Crust
Crusts
A thin waxy crust in warm salmon-pink to coral-orange shades, spreading along dead attached twigs of hazel, oak and gorse.
Spore print · White
Western Gall Rust
Other Fungi
A rust of hard pines that swells branches into round woody galls which split each spring and release clouds of bright orange spores.
Spore print · Not applicable (orange spore masses)
Cinnabar Polypore
Polypores
An unmistakable bracket coloured vivid orange-red throughout, from the smooth upper surface to the fine pore layer beneath.
Spore print · White
White Button Mushroom
Gilled
The familiar rounded white Agaricus with free gills that shift from pale pink to dark brown and a soft ring on the stipe. Wild forms grow on rich, composted or manured ground rather than on wood.
Spore print · Dark chocolate 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)
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
Lilac Bonnet
Gilled
A litter-dwelling bonnet with a lilac, violet or pinkish cap, broad widely spaced gills and a strong radish smell. Colour varies widely, so the odour and gill structure matter more than the shade.
Spore print · White
Golden Scalycap
Gilled
A striking golden-orange Pholiota that fruits from wounds high on broadleaf trunks, with a glutinous cap bearing flattened darker scales and a rusty spore print.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Inocybe erubescens
Gilled
A stout, silky white fibrecap of chalky beech and lime woods that reddens conspicuously where handled or aged. Its spring fruiting and radially split cap are characteristic.
Spore print · Clay brown
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
The Blusher
Gilled
A robust woodland Amanita whose flesh slowly stains wine-pink to reddish-brown wherever it is cut, bruised or nibbled by insects, with a grooved ring and dirty pinkish-grey veil warts.
Spore print · White
Reishi
Polypores
A hard, kidney-shaped bracket with a strikingly glossy, varnished-looking reddish-mahogany surface, a pale cream pore underside and often a lateral or eccentric stalk.
Spore print · Brown
Stalked Lattice Stinkhorn
Stinkhorns
A tall stinkhorn with a slender whitish stalk carrying a globose, orange-red latticed head whose mesh spaces are filled with dark olive spore slime.
Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)
Strap Coral
Corals & Clubs
Small, tongue- or strap-shaped clubs of pale buff to pinkish-ochre, often fruiting in scattered troops through deep conifer needle litter.
Spore print · White to pale pinkish-buff
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
Tawny Funnel
Gilled
A rusty orange-brown funnel that fruits in dense crowded troops and rings in woodland litter, with very crowded decurrent gills that age to the cap colour.
Spore print · Pale cream
Crown-tipped Coral
Corals & Clubs
A wood-inhabiting coral whose every branch ends in a small crown or cup ringed with tiny points, growing in rows along rotting hardwood logs.
Spore print · White