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 Tumor of a plant (Gall)

Coprinellus radians

Coprinellus radians

Gilled

A small tawny inkcap recognised less by the mushroom than by the conspicuous rusty-orange felted mat of mycelium, called an ozonium, that spreads across the wood beneath it.

Spore print · Blackish brown

Golden Spindles

Golden Spindles

Corals & Clubs

Vivid egg-yellow spindles that fuse at the base into tight bundles, each club tapering to a fine point that browns with age. A signature fungus of old, unfertilised turf.

Spore print · White

Beautiful Bonnet

Beautiful Bonnet

Gilled

A tufted wood bonnet with a pale ochre-brown cap and a striking bright yellow stipe, most often found on beech. The contrast between pale cap and vivid stem base gives it its name.

Spore print · White

Clustered Brittlestem

Clustered Brittlestem

Gilled

A brittlestem that grows in tight bouquets of dozens of slender stems fused at a common base, each carrying a small conical tan cap. The stems are white, hollow and snap cleanly.

Spore print · Dark purple-brown

Dyer's Polypore

Dyer's Polypore

Polypores

A large, velvety, concentrically zoned rosette at the foot of conifers, rusty brown at the centre with a vivid yellow growing edge and olive-yellow pores that bruise dark brown.

Spore print · White to pale yellow

Golden Oyster

Golden Oyster

Gilled

A clustered oyster mushroom with bright lemon to golden-yellow caps that flatten into shallow funnels, with white decurrent gills on fused off-centre stalks.

Spore print · White to pale lilac-grey

Black-staining Polypore

Black-staining Polypore

Polypores

A large clustered rosette of grey-brown fans at the foot of hardwood trees whose white pore surface and pale flesh blacken within minutes of being touched.

Spore print · White

Birch Brittlegill

Birch Brittlegill

Gilled

A small, delicate brittlegill with a pale rosy or almost white cap, found only with birch on wet acid ground. Its thin flesh and grooved margin make it one of the frailest of the genus.

Spore print · White

Green-spored Parasol

Green-spored Parasol

Gilled

A large lawn parasol of warm regions, unique among the big scaly agarics in dropping a green to grey-green spore print and in having mature gills that dull from white to sage green.

Spore print · Green to greyish-green

Lion's Mane

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

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

Sulphur Tuft

Sulphur Tuft

Gilled

A very common stump fungus forming crowded tufts of small sulphur-yellow caps with rusty centres, sulphur-yellow gills that age greenish then purple-brown, and a purple-brown spore print.

Spore print · Purple-brown

Iodine Bolete

Iodine Bolete

Boletes

A pale, dry-capped bolete of warm oak woodland with lemon-yellow pores that do not blue and a stipe base whose flesh carries a distinctive iodoform-like odour.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Summer Truffle

Summer Truffle

Other Fungi

A widespread hypogeous ascomycete with a black exterior of large, coarse pyramidal warts and a pale hazel-brown interior broadly marbled with white veins.

Spore print · Not applicable (hypogeous)

Spring Fieldcap

Spring Fieldcap

Gilled

An early-season fieldcap of woodchip and grassy path edges, with a pale tan cap, a ring on the stipe, white mycelial cords at the base and a dark brown spore print.

Spore print · Dark snuff-brown

Bearded Fieldcap

Bearded Fieldcap

Gilled

A firm, pale cream fieldcap of grassy places whose cap often cracks in dry weather and hangs shreds of white veil from the margin, giving it a bearded look.

Spore print · Dull brown to snuff brown

Red Coral

Red Coral

Corals & Clubs

A brilliantly red to scarlet branched coral of Pacific conifer forests, growing from deep needle duff. Some forms carry contrasting yellow branch tips.

Spore print · Pale yellow

Horsehair Parachute

Horsehair Parachute

Gilled

A pinhead-sized brown parachute perched on a stiff black hair, often accompanied by tangles of black horsehair-like cords running through the needle litter.

Spore print · White

Velvet Roll-rim

Velvet Roll-rim

Gilled

A stout, thick-fleshed gilled fungus of conifer stumps, instantly recognised by the dense blackish-brown velvet coating its short, often off-centre stipe.

Spore print · Pale yellow-brown

Shaggy Bracket

Shaggy Bracket

Polypores

A large, thick, coarsely shaggy bracket that starts bright rusty orange and ages through dark brown to black, growing high on the trunks of living broadleaved trees.

Spore print · Yellowish brown

Pungent Slippery Jack

Pungent Slippery Jack

Boletes

A dull grey-buff to olive-brown slippery jack whose ringless stalk is finely peppered with brown dots. It gives off an unusually strong, sweet, spicy aroma.

Spore print · Cinnamon-brown

Pink Oyster Mushroom

Pink Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

A tropical and subtropical oyster mushroom forming rosettes of thin salmon-pink to rose fans on dead hardwood, the colour fading to buff as the fruit bodies mature.

Spore print · Pale pink to whitish

Pholiotina rugosa

Pholiotina rugosa

Gilled

A small rusty-spored mushroom of mulch and lawns with a tawny wrinkled cap and, unlike the true conecaps, a distinct movable membranous ring on the slender stipe.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Ochre Brittlegill

Ochre Brittlegill

Gilled

One of the most abundant woodland brittlegills, with a plain dull ochre-yellow cap, pale cream gills and a white stipe that greys distinctly with age and wet weather.

Spore print · Pale cream