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 Brown Fly Agaric or European Brown Blusher

Shield Pinkgill

Gilled

A spring-fruiting pinkgill of hedgerows and orchards, with a grey-brown shield-shaped cap and a strict association with rose-family shrubs and trees.

Spore print · Pink

Oak Curtain Crust

Oak Curtain Crust

Crusts

Thin, dark rust-brown tiers with wavy edges draped along oak stumps, with a velvety, smooth fertile surface and no pores.

Spore print · White

Bonfire Scalycap

Bonfire Scalycap

Gilled

A small sticky-capped scalycap restricted to burnt ground and charcoal, with a tawny centre, pale yellow margin and a brown spore print.

Spore print · Brown

Redlead Roundhead

Redlead Roundhead

Gilled

An unmistakable scarlet to orange-red mushroom of woodchip mulch, with a sticky cap, whitish fibrillose stem and dark purple-brown gills.

Spore print · Purple-brown

Red Cage Fungus

Red Cage Fungus

Stinkhorns

A stinkhorn that emerges from a white egg as a hollow, red, net-like sphere, its inner arms smeared with olive-brown spore slime. It is common in mulched garden beds and disturbed ground in warm-temperate regions.

Spore print · Not applicable

Mild Milkcap

Mild Milkcap

Gilled

A small, abundant reddish-brown milkcap of beech litter with a dry unzoned cap, crowded pale gills and copious white latex that dries whey-like on the gills. It often fruits in large troops beneath mature beech.

Spore print · Cream to pale buff

Yellowfoot Dapperling

Yellowfoot Dapperling

Gilled

A slim woodland dapperling with a shaggy ochre-brown scaly cap and a stem sheathed below the ring in loose yellow woolly veil, brightest toward the base. Its large spindle-shaped spores give the species its name.

Spore print · White

Early Morel

Early Morel

Morels & Allies

A thimble-capped spring ascomycete whose longitudinally wrinkled, tan to yellow-brown cap hangs free from the very top of the stalk like a bell. The stalk is stuffed with loose cottony pith rather than being hollow.

Spore print · Pale yellow to cream

Nitrous Waxcap

Nitrous Waxcap

Gilled

A drab grey-brown waxcap identified less by colour than by its sharp nitrous, bleach-like smell and fibrous, matt cap.

Spore print · White

Bruising Webcap

Bruising Webcap

Gilled

A robust webcap with a slimy streaky olive-brown cap whose violet gills and flesh flush deep purple wherever they are rubbed or cut.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Dingy Twiglet

Dingy Twiglet

Gilled

A small, sombre olive-brown woodland mushroom with a finely velvety cap and a pale frosted gill edge, fruiting on fallen deciduous branches.

Spore print · Olive-brown to snuff brown

Graceful Bolete

Graceful Bolete

Boletes

A slim, long-stemmed bolete with a velvety chestnut cap, white pores that age flesh-pink, and an unusual pinkish-brown spore print.

Spore print · Pinkish to reddish-brown

Horse Mushroom

Horse Mushroom

Gilled

A large, robust white grassland Agaricus with a distinctive double 'cogwheel' ring, greyish-white young gills that turn chocolate-brown, and a strong aniseed odour. It forms troops and rings in open pasture.

Spore print · Dark chocolate-brown

Powdery Piggyback

Powdery Piggyback

Gilled

A small parasitic mushroom that grows on decaying blackening brittlegills, its rounded white cap soon breaking into a brown powdery mass of asexual spores.

Spore print · White, rarely produced

Mousepee Pinkgill

Mousepee Pinkgill

Gilled

A small grassland pinkgill with an olive-brown cap and a startling blue-green stipe that bruises deeper green, plus a pungent mouse-like smell.

Spore print · Pink

Yellow-juice Cup

Yellow-juice Cup

Cups & Discs

A dull grey-brown woodland cup whose brittle flesh releases a watery juice that turns bright yellow within moments of being cut.

Spore print · White

Russet Toughshank

Gilled

One of the commonest litter mushrooms of oak woods: a smooth russet-brown cap on a slim, tough, hollow stem, fruiting in troops for much of the year.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Black Poplar Mushroom

Black Poplar Mushroom

Gilled

A clustered brown-spored wood mushroom with a smooth two-toned cap that cracks in dry weather, a pale fibrous stipe and a persistent membranous ring.

Spore print · Tobacco brown

Club Foot

Club Foot

Gilled

A grey-brown woodland funnel identified at a glance by its markedly swollen, club-shaped stipe base and deeply decurrent creamy-yellow gills.

Spore print · White

Hollow-stemmed Larch Bolete

Hollow-stemmed Larch Bolete

Boletes

A dry, shaggy brown larch bolete with large radiating yellow pores and a uniquely hollow, chambered stalk. Cutting the stem lengthways confirms it instantly.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Desert Truffle

Other Fungi

A hypogeous ascomycete of arid steppe that forms pale, smooth-skinned tubers among sun-rose plants, with a reddish-brown gleba veined in white.

Spore print · Not applicable (hypogeous)

Kalahari Truffle

Other Fungi

A southern African desert truffle forming pale sandy-brown underground bodies among dune grasses, betrayed at the surface by small cracks in the sand.

Spore print · Not applicable (hypogeous)

Dryad's Saddle

Dryad's Saddle

Polypores

A large fan-shaped bracket patterned with concentric brown scales like a pheasant's plumage, set on a short off-centre stem with a black base.

Spore print · White

White Button Mushroom

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