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 Bonnet Mushroom

Pinecone Cap

Pinecone Cap

Gilled

A slender spring mushroom arising from buried pine cones, with a small pale brown cap, whitish widely spaced gills, and a long tawny rooting stem.

Spore print · White

Lion Shield

Lion Shield

Gilled

A slender golden-yellow shield mushroom with a velvety wrinkled cap centre, a finely lined margin and free gills that flush pink. It fruits on decaying deciduous wood.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink

Flat Crep

Flat Crep

Gilled

A small white to buff fan-shaped mushroom attached sideways to rotting hardwood, with radiating gills that darken to cinnamon and no real stem. It often grows in overlapping tiers.

Spore print · Pale cinnamon-brown

Golden Scruffy Collybia

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

Shaggy Parasol

Shaggy Parasol

Gilled

A stout, heavily shaggy relative of the Parasol Mushroom with a smooth unbanded stem, a bulbous base and pale flesh that stains saffron then dull reddish brown where it is cut.

Spore print · White

Scarlet Waxcap

Scarlet Waxcap

Gilled

A small, vividly blood-red grassland mushroom with thick, waxy, broadly attached gills and a smooth red stem, one of the classic waxcaps of ancient short turf.

Spore print · White

Fuzzy Foot

Fuzzy Foot

Gilled

A tiny orange-brown bell-shaped mushroom that erupts in enormous swarms across mossy conifer logs, recognised by decurrent veined gills and a tuft of tawny fuzz at the stipe base.

Spore print · White

Spindleshank

Spindleshank

Gilled

Tough, clustered mushrooms at the foot of oaks, with rust-spotted gills and a distinctive grooved, spindle-shaped stem that tapers into a twisted root.

Spore print · White

White Dapperling

White Dapperling

Gilled

A clean white grassland mushroom with a smooth unscaled cap, free gills that flush pale pink with age, a movable ring and a slightly swollen base without any sac.

Spore print · White to faintly pinkish

Conifercone Cap

Conifercone Cap

Gilled

A small tan-buff mushroom that fruits directly from fallen spruce and pine cones, recognised by extremely crowded gills and a hairy, cord-like rooting stem base.

Spore print · White

Goldleaf Shield

Goldleaf Shield

Gilled

A small shield mushroom recognised by the contrast between its wrinkled brown cap and its bright chrome-yellow stem. It fruits on decaying hardwood twigs and buried debris.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink

Butter Cap

Gilled

A late-season litter mushroom recognised by its greasy-feeling cap, crowded white gills, distinctly club-shaped stem base and pale pinkish spore print.

Spore print · Pale pinkish cream

Piggyback Rosegill

Piggyback Rosegill

Gilled

A small white silky mushroom with a sac-like volva that grows directly out of the decaying caps of Clouded Funnel. Its free gills turn pink and it is one of the few fungicolous agarics.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink

Scaly Shield

Scaly Shield

Gilled

A large pale shield mushroom whose whitish cap carries brown fibrillose scales over the centre, with free gills flushing pink and a stout ringless stem. It favours sawdust and mulch.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink

Pluteus admirabilis

Pluteus admirabilis

Gilled

A very small, delicate golden-yellow shield mushroom with a wrinkled cap centre, a strongly lined margin and free gills that flush pink. It is common on decaying hardwood in eastern North America.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink

False Chanterelle

False Chanterelle

Gilled

A soft orange funnel-capped mushroom with crowded, repeatedly forked, deeply decurrent true gills and a white spore print. Despite the chanterelle-like shape it belongs to the bolete order, not the chanterelles.

Spore print · White to cream

Clustered Toughshank

Clustered Toughshank

Gilled

Crowded tufts of slim pale mushrooms whose long stems, densely coated in fine white hairs, fuse together at a common base buried in the leaf litter.

Spore print · White

Pale Brittlestem

Pale Brittlestem

Gilled

A fragile, pale-capped clustering mushroom with a toothed veil fringe on the cap edge, gills that shift from white through grey to purple-brown, and a brittle hollow white stem.

Spore print · Purple-brown

Scurfy Twiglet

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

Willow Shield

Willow Shield

Gilled

A slender grey to greenish-grey shield mushroom of damp riverside woods, with free gills that turn salmon-pink, a pale stem often bluing at the base, and a pink spore print.

Spore print · Pink

Spotted Toughshank

Spotted Toughshank

Gilled

A firm, long-stemmed woodland mushroom whose cream cap and crowded pale gills develop scattered rust-coloured blotches as it ages. Common in conifer plantations and on heathland litter.

Spore print · Pale pinkish cream

Funeral Bell

Funeral Bell

Gilled

A small, strongly hygrophanous honey-brown mushroom of rotting wood, identified by rusty brown spores, a thin membranous ring dusted rust by falling spores, and clustered growth on logs.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Liberty Cap

Gilled

A small, slender grassland mushroom with a sharply conical cap ending in a distinct nipple, a separable gelatinous cap skin, a wavy thin stem and a dark purple-brown spore print.

Spore print · Dark purple-brown

Sheathed Woodtuft

Sheathed Woodtuft

Gilled

A tufted stump mushroom whose hygrophanous cap dries in two tones from the centre out, above a narrow ring and a stem clad below in coarse dark upturned scales.

Spore print · Ochre-brown to cinnamon brown