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 Mottlegill or Fragile Inky Cap

Shield Dapperling

Shield Dapperling

Gilled

A slender woodland dapperling with an ochre-brown scaly cap, a shaggy fringed margin, and a stem sheathed below the vague ring in loose woolly cotton like a rolled-down sock.

Spore print · White

Variable Oysterling

Variable Oysterling

Gilled

A tiny stalkless white fungus that grows in numbers on the underside of dead twigs and stems, its felted fan-shaped cap paired with a distinctive pale pinkish-brown spore print.

Spore print · Pale pinkish-brown

Snakeskin Grisette

Snakeskin Grisette

Gilled

A large ringless Amanita whose bronze-brown cap carries ragged grey veil patches and whose stem is wrapped in snakeskin-like grey bands above a crumbling volva.

Spore print · White

Spring King Bolete

Spring King Bolete

Boletes

A western North American porcini relative that fruits in clustered groups near melting snow in mountain conifer forest, often half-buried with a soil-crusted reddish-brown cap.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Russell's Bolete

Russell's Bolete

Boletes

A tall, elegant bolete of eastern oak woods, instantly known by its extraordinarily long stipe carved with deep, ragged, shaggy ridges and by its cracked olive-brown cap.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Paddy Straw Mushroom

Paddy Straw Mushroom

Gilled

A tropical Volvariella that emerges from a dark, egg-like universal veil, leaving a thick sac at the stem base beneath a silky grey-brown cap with free pink gills.

Spore print · Pink to salmon pink

Red-mouth Bolete

Red-mouth Bolete

Boletes

An eastern North American red-pored bolete with a velvety brown cap, dark red pores that flash blue at a touch, and coarse dark red hairs clothing the stipe base.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Split Fibrecap

Split Fibrecap

Gilled

A slender ochre-brown woodland fibrecap whose sharply umbonate cap splits radially into coarse straw-coloured fibres. One of the commonest and most recognisable members of a large, difficult genus.

Spore print · Dull clay-brown

Scaly Webcap

Scaly Webcap

Gilled

A strikingly shaggy webcap covered in dark brown erect scales on both cap and stem, with violet-tinged young gills and a violaceous stem apex. It partners with birch on damp acid soils.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Parasola auricoma

Parasola auricoma

Gilled

A delicate pleated inkcap of mulch and path edges whose young cap carries scattered stiff brown hairs, visible with a hand lens, that give the species its golden-haired name.

Spore print · Black

Deer Shield

Deer Shield

Gilled

The commonest of the shield mushrooms, with a deer-brown silky cap, free gills that turn from white to salmon-pink, and a fibrous ringless stem. It fruits on decaying wood almost year-round.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink

Parasol Mushroom

Parasol Mushroom

Gilled

One of the largest European grassland agarics, recognised by its drumstick-shaped young form, shaggy brown cap scales and a snakeskin-patterned stem carrying a thick, movable double ring.

Spore print · White

Coccora

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

Yellowfoot Chanterelle

Yellowfoot Chanterelle

Gilled

A slender late-season funnel with a brown wavy cap, widely spaced grey-yellow forking ridges beneath, and a hollow yellow stipe. It fruits in large troops through moss and conifer litter.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Straw Mushroom

Straw Mushroom

Gilled

A tropical decomposer that emerges as a dark egg wrapped in a membrane, then expands to a grey-brown cap on a ringless stipe seated in a sac-like volva. Its gills turn pink and the spore print is salmon.

Spore print · Salmon pink

Zoned Tooth

Zoned Tooth

Toothed

A thin, tough toothed fungus whose flattened cap is marked with strong concentric bands of pink, white and brown. Neighbouring fruiting bodies often fuse into irregular sheets across the woodland floor.

Spore print · 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

Conical Brittlestem

Conical Brittlestem

Gilled

A strikingly tall, thin-stemmed mushroom with a narrow conical cap that dries from dark date-brown to pale tan, its surface set with fine erect bristles visible under a lens.

Spore print · Blackish brown

Bare-toothed Brittlegill

Bare-toothed Brittlegill

Gilled

A firm, muted pinkish-brown brittlegill whose cap skin shrinks back from the rim to expose a fine pale line of gill ends. It partners with oak and beech on well-drained soils.

Spore print · White to very pale cream

Weeping Widow

Weeping Widow

Gilled

A shaggy tawny-brown grassland mushroom whose blackening gills bead with dark droplets in humid weather. The hairy cap, veil-fringed margin and near-black spore print make it distinctive.

Spore print · Very dark brown to blackish

Pioppino

Pioppino

Gilled

A clustered wood-dwelling mushroom with a wrinkled tan cap, a firm white stipe bearing a persistent ring, and gills that darken from whitish to tobacco brown. It grows in tiers on poplar and other soft hardwoods.

Spore print · Tobacco brown

Chestnut Dapperling

Chestnut Dapperling

Gilled

A small woodland dapperling whose pale cap is broken into fine, dark chestnut-brown granular scales arranged in rough concentric rings, on a slender stem sheathed with the same rusty scaling below a vanishing ring.

Spore print · White

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

Red-tinged Lepiota

Red-tinged Lepiota

Gilled

A slim, neatly built parasol whose reddish cuticle splits outward from a dark reddish-brown centre into fine coppery streaks over a white cap. The stem is smooth, white and hollow with a thin movable ring.

Spore print · White