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 Yellow-Staining Mushroom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Velvet Rollrim

Velvet Rollrim

Gilled

A robust brown mushroom of conifer stumps with a suede-textured inrolled cap, decurrent forking gills that peel away from the flesh, and a thick stem clad in dark brown-black velvet.

Spore print · Yellowish-brown

Clouded Funnel

Clouded Funnel

Gilled

A stout, pale grey funnel-capped woodland mushroom that troops in long lines and rings through autumn leaf litter, recognised by its bloomed cloudy cap and crowded creamy gills.

Spore print · 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

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

Amethyst Deceiver

Amethyst Deceiver

Gilled

A small woodland mushroom that is intensely violet when fresh and moist, with thick, widely spaced gills of the same colour and a fibrous, twisted stem. It fades so dramatically as it dries that it can look like a completely different species.

Spore print · White

Shaggy Ink Cap

Shaggy Ink Cap

Gilled

A tall, white, cylindrical mushroom clothed in shaggy upturned scales, whose gills pass from white through pink to black before dissolving into inky liquid. The movable ring and black spore print are confirming features.

Spore print · Black

Fragile Dapperling

Fragile Dapperling

Gilled

Perhaps the most insubstantial gilled mushroom in the field guide: a wafer-thin, deeply pleated yellowish-green cap stretched over its gills like a parasol skin, on a stem no thicker than a wire. It collapses to a smear within hours of opening.

Spore print · White