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”
Craterellus lutescens
Gilled
A slender funnel-shaped fungus with a scurfy brown cap, a bright orange-yellow hollow stalk and an almost smooth orange underside rather than distinct ridges.
Spore print · White to pale cream
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
Panaeolus cyanescens
Gilled
A slender pale-capped dung mottlegill of warm regions whose flesh and stipe stain blue-green where handled, with mottled black gills and a black spore print.
Spore print · Black
Hen of the Woods
Polypores
A large rosette of many overlapping grey-brown spoon-shaped caps rising from a branched white stalk at the foot of oaks, with a white pore surface running down the branches.
Spore print · White
Thick-footed Morel
Morels & Allies
The traditional name for the largest yellow morels, distinguished by a swollen, deeply furrowed and chambered stalk base beneath a broad ochre honeycomb cap. Specimens can exceed 25 cm in height.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
Stubble Rosegill
Gilled
A large greasy-capped mushroom of disturbed rich ground, with free gills that turn deep salmon pink and a stipe seated in a conspicuous white sac-like volva but with no ring at all.
Spore print · Salmon pink
Tiger's Eye
Polypores
A small, thin, leathery funnel-shaped polypore on a slender central stalk, its cap silky and banded in concentric rings of rust, ochre and grey-brown with a brown pore surface underneath.
Spore print · Yellowish brown
Dog Stinkhorn
Stinkhorns
A slim, delicate stinkhorn whose tapering pale stalk ends in an orange tip smeared with dark spore slime. It has no separate cap, which distinguishes it from the larger Phallus species.
Spore print · Olive-brown (spores in the slimy gleba)
Winter Polypore
Polypores
A small, tough, centrally stalked polypore with a dull grey-brown velvety cap and fine white decurrent pores, notable for fruiting in the cold months when little else is out.
Spore print · White
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
Velvet Shank
Gilled
A tufted orange-capped mushroom with a slimy cap and a distinctive dark, velvety stem base, fruiting on hardwood stumps in the coldest months. The contrast between the bright cap and near-black stem is the giveaway.
Spore print · White
Gabled False Morel
Morels & Allies
A spring false morel of eastern hardwood forest whose chestnut-brown cap is folded into two to four broad, flaring lobes with pale wavy margins, sitting on a stout white ribbed stalk.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Tuberous Polypore
Polypores
A stout stalked polypore with a scaly ochre cap, fringed margin and large white decurrent pores, often arising from a hard, stone-like underground mass of soil-bound mycelium.
Spore print · White
Yellow Webcap
Gilled
A slimy-capped webcap in warm ochre-yellow, distinguished by pale bluish-violet young gills and a bluish stem apex above a glutinous, banded stem. Common with birch on damp acid soils.
Spore print · Rusty brown
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
Amethyst Chanterelle
Gilled
A European chanterelle whose egg-yellow cap is dusted with small appressed amethyst to lilac scales. Below, it has the family's usual blunt yellow forking ridges running down a tapering stalk.
Spore print · Pale cream to yellowish
Bitter Oyster
Gilled
A small, tough, tan kidney-shaped bracket with a suede-textured cap and a stubby lateral stalk, growing in dense overlapping rows on hardwood; North American populations glow faintly green in the dark.
Spore print · White
Green Pepe
Gilled
A very small, sticky-capped tropical Mycena whose gills and stipe emit a soft green light at night. It fruits in clusters on decaying palm fronds, bamboo and twiggy litter after warm rain.
Spore print · White
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
Common Morel
Morels & Allies
A spring ascomycete with a pitted, honeycomb-like ovoid head fused to a hollow pale stalk, forming one continuous cavity from tip to base.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
Ear-pick Fungus
Toothed
A miniature dark brown toothed fungus with a kidney-shaped hairy cap on a slender side-attached stalk, growing directly from decaying pine cones. Its shape recalls an old-fashioned ear-pick.
Spore print · White
Brown Mottlegill
Gilled
One of the commonest small brown mushrooms of mown lawns, with a two-tone drying cap and mottled dark brown gills that give a dark brown rather than black spore print.
Spore print · Dark brown
Striated Earthstar
Puffballs
An earthstar recognised by the flaring collar or skirt that spreads beneath its grey spore sac, combined with a sharply grooved, beak-like mouth on a short stalk.
Spore print · Dark brown (spore mass)
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